Number of Bank Holding Company Insurance underwriters rose in 2002.(Bank Insurance)(Industry...

Underwriting noncredit-related property-casualty, ordinary life and health lines of insurance is novel for, and largely untried by, banking organizations.

Previously, banks and bank holding companies were forbidden to engage in these insurance activities, with only a few exceptions. The most notable exception was a 1990 Delaware law that was subsequently negated in 1991 when Congress passed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA) to establish additional funding for the FDIC and specific capital adequacy standards. FDICIA grandfathered the non