National Meeting NewsThe Power of Innovation to Drive Change: NAIC President White’s 2026 Summer National Meeting KeynoteAug. 12, 2026

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Aug. 12, 2026) The Power of Innovation to Drive Change: NAIC President White’s 2026 Summer National Meeting Keynote Throughout its more than 150-year history, the U.S. state-based system of insurance regulation has grown with the country and the insurance industry—adapting and modernizing to continue leading, protecting consumers, and ensuring strong, stable, and secure markets. This week, state insurance regulators are continuing that tradition during the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC’s) 2026 Summer National Meeting in Columbus, Ohio, a state with its own rich history of innovation. On Wednesday, Aug. 12, Virginia Insurance Commissioner and NAIC President Scott A. White delivered the meeting’s keynote address, where he highlighted the work of state insurance regulators and the NAIC to drive change in financial solvency regulation, natural catastrophe risk mitigation, and the oversight of emerging technologies. As he closed, Commissioner White noted , “Everyone around this table and across this room—regulators and the NAIC team—we all share in the responsibility of carrying the state-based system forward into its next chapter.” Below, you can find Commissioner White’s remarks as prepared for delivery: **** Thank you, Governor DeWine and Director French, for welcoming us. It’s great to be back here in Columbus, in the state of Ohio. Before we go further, I also want to thank the state legislators and other state government officials joining us from across the country for our 18th Annual State Officials Program. It’s great to have you with us as we work together to protect consumers and markets. Many of you will remember our last visit here, in August of 2021, which was held in this same hotel and conference space. This was the first national meeting after the lockdown from the pandemic, part of the gradual reopening of society we were going through at the time. We were still getting used to being together again in person. And while it was exciting to see each other off-screen, we weren’t yet back to normal. Attendance was down, and I remember walking to meetings down hallways without the usual crowds and stepping into conference rooms that were half full. So, it’s great to be in a packed room for our Opening Session with all of you today. And it was great to hear the tributes from Governor DeWine and Director French celebrating the achievements of their state. Certainly, Ohioans have much to be proud of. The state boasts several native sons whose inventions changed the world. Thomas Edison, born in Milan, Ohio, is best known as the inventor of the light bulb. Developing an electric light was something scientists had been working on for over 50 years, but it was Edison whose invention of the long-lasting incandescent light bulb forever changed how society functions when the sun goes down. And then there’s the Wright Brothers, who of course invented and flew the world’s first successful motor-operated airplane. Now I know Commissioner Causey will be quick to point out that this flight took place on the dunes of Kitty Hawk in 1903, but Orville and Wilbur perfected the design of their aircraft at a bicycle shop in Dayton, a little over an hour’s drive east of here. And we all understand the importance of this achievement: It shrunk global distances and eventually led humanity to the space age. Few examples capture the power of innovation to drive real change better than these. And their stories carry another lesson: Real progress takes time. It comes from years of steady effort and from pushing through setbacks along the way. In our world, there’s no better example of how innovation can drive change than the modernization of our financial solvency framework that began in the early 1990s. This effort began after a wave of insurer insolvencies raised real questions about the ability of states to properly assess insurers’ financial condition. Understanding that real change was needed, the NAIC and Member states embarked on an ambitious series of reforms that transformed how states collectively evaluate an insurance company’s financial strength. Think of the Accreditation Program, the move from minimum capital requirements to Risk-Based Capital, and the Investment Model Law. Another important reform was moving from an approach to financial examinations that broadly tested past financial data to one that focuses on the insurer’s most significant current and emerging risks. That’s what we refer to now as a risk-focused approach. A young, bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed Jeff Johnston, who had joined the NAIC a year earlier, was given the responsibility of teaching this new approach to state insurance regulators. Over the course of the next two years, Jeff crisscrossed the country, traveling to cities like Columbus, where in ballrooms and breakout spaces, he patiently walked small teams of regulators through a process that challenged long-standing practices and reshaped how states