Sandy Praeger addresses this week's annual meeting of the National Associated of Insurance Commissioners in Houston.

Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, a Lawrence resident and former mayor, is the new president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, an organization that works to protect buyers of policies and help maintain the financial stability of the overall industry.

“Personally, I really view this as an honor to have my fellow commissioners elect me to represent them,” Praeger said from Paris, where she is part of a U.S. delegation testifying about insurance and pension issues before the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “We all put consumers first. That’s our primary function, and we work together to make the marketplace – those people selling the products, and the people to buy them – work for everybody.

“But there’s always room for improvement.”

Among her goals for leading the Kansas City, Mo.-based association, which operates on a $68 million budget, has three offices and about 425 employees:

¢ Modernization. The association itself, founded in 1871, is the country’s oldest association of state officials, and its employees and leaders are working to help boost efficiency and performance of systems enabling state insurance departments to approve insurance products. That, in turn, could help speed getting new products to market and, perhaps, reduce premiums paid by consumers.

“We get criticized by members of Congress, and some people in the industry, about how having every state having its own system probably is a bit cumbersome,” Praeger said. “There may be ways to address that, while still maintaining state regulations while having some uniformity.”

¢ Information. Praeger said that health insurance reform would be a major focus during the coming year, as the presidential race heats up and candidates tout the advantages of their respective plans.

“We want to be there – not to endorse one candidate over another, but to discuss the elements of the reforms and point out what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “You may create some winners (as consumers), and you may create some losers. We want to make sure people are aware.”

¢ Recalculation. The association is looking into making changes to the formulas that mandate how much money insurance companies must hold in reserve to pay claims, Praeger said.

Instead of relying on hard-and-fast numbers, new guidelines could rely more on principles.

“In the long run, it’s a much better scheme,” she said. “It should result, overall, in lower premiums in all lines of insurance.”

Praeger formally took office Tuesday in Houston, during the association’s annual meeting, before flying to Paris to meet with the organization that had been founded in 1947 as the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. The trip is the first of many she will be making as association president, when duty calls for testifying before Congress, leading educational efforts or guiding reform activities.

“It’s going to be a very busy year,” said Praeger, who served as a state legislator before being elected insurance commissioner in 2002 and again in 2006. “But it’s a great opportunity, and it brings recognition to our state.”