abstract:Optional Federal Charter (OFC) is a proposal to streamline and simplify US insurance regulation by allowing insurance companies to choose between a current state-based regulatory system and a single federal regulatory agency. This would mean that insurance companies would be regulated something like banks: they could choose either a state charter or a federal one.
Among the proposed reforms: slashing the number of banking regulators from five entities to three, giving the Fed expanded powers to deal with market crises, creating a new federal commission to set mortgage-origination standards, and establishing an optionalfederalcharter for insurance firms.