Sandy Praeger, Kansas Insurance Commissioner, speaks at the 2007 National Association of Insurance Commissioners meeting in Houston. Praeger has been the national face of the insurance industry during the recent financial meltdown.

During the recent financial meltdown, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger has been the national face of the insurance industry.

Through interviews published in major business publications or appearances on news shows, the former Lawrence mayor’s message was simple: state-regulated insurance companies, including the ones at American International Group, which needed a federal bailout for its financial products division, are financially sound.

Praeger has served as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners the past year.

“What I’m proudest of this year — just the fact that we’ve been able to work collectively to demonstrate that our house was in order when the rest of the financial services sector seemed to be having difficulty,” Praeger said in an interview after her term as NAIC president ended in December.

The NAIC, the nation’s oldest organization of state officials, started to receive more attention in September after AIG’s leaders announced they were in trouble. Praeger, as the NAIC president, received a call at home one Sunday night from Eric R. Dinallo, the insurance superintendent of New York state, about AIG’s problems.

Dinallo asked Praeger to get the word out and say AIG’s insurance companies were stable. Praeger even wrote a letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal that defended state regulation of the insurance industry after four members of Congress advocated for federal regulation in a column.

In the last few months, Praeger’s work for the national organization consumed much of her time, leaving a lot of her Kansas office’s day-to-day operation to staff members, she said.

“Everything I’m doing at the NAIC benefits Kansas,” said Praeger, who lives in Lawrence.

In defense of state insurance regulation, Praeger mentioned what became another major financial story this year.

“The Madoff thing would not have happened under the state regulatory system,” Praeger said of Bernard Madoff, the former investment guru who faces charges for bilking his investors in a Ponzi scheme.

She said that when the Securities and Exchange Commission conducts an internal examination of its processes, it will find that “perhaps they weren’t adequate.”

Aside from trying to create a sense of calm during the financial crisis, Praeger said the NAIC had several other developments. More states signed on to a compact for life insurance products, and a committee is working on modernizing some aspects of insurance regulation. When the organization hires a new chief executive officer, the person will work out of Washington, D.C., instead of Kansas City, Mo.

Praeger expects the Obama administration to dive heavily into health care issues, so the NAIC needs someone there to advocate for the insurance industry. As a past president for the NAIC, Praeger will be working on health care issues as well, in addition to her state duties.

Praeger, a moderate Republican, during the presidential campaign criticized GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s health care plan to allow a product licensed in one state to be approved to be sold in all states. Instead, she said, the country needs a bipartisan approach to creating a new health care policy.

“Anything that diminishes our ability to advocate for the consumer I think is wrong,” she said. “Neither presidential nominee had the perfect solution, and it’s going to mean everybody pulling up their shirt sleeves because we’ve got work to do.”