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Digital EditionA Unique Forum for Financial Regulators Enters a New Chapter
A longstanding program devoted exclusively to insurance financial regulators entered a new chapter in 2026, with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa joining the Insurance Regulator Education Foundation (IREF) and The Institutes Griffith Insurance Education Foundation as academic collaborators.
The expanded collaboration builds on a university-based model that has served regulators for decades: bring a small group together on campus, give them direct access to experts and peers and create space to look beyond their day-to-day responsibilities at the broader insurance ecosystem.
This year, approximately 25 regulators from across the country gathered July 20–25 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for IREF’s Financial Regulators Program, the only university-based educational program devoted exclusively to insurance financial regulators. Participation is application-based and intentionally limited, creating a setting that is less like a traditional conference and more like an intensive workshop.
Having collaborated with IREF on this program for several years, I have seen why that environment matters. Insurance regulation is highly specialized, and financial analysts and examiners understandably spend much of their time focused on the responsibilities immediately in front of them.
But insurer solvency-related considerations often span multiple issues. Reinsurance, catastrophe risk, investments, emerging exposures and other concerns intersect in ways that require regulators to understand more than one piece of the ecosystem. The better regulators and others across the industry understand each other’s perspectives, the easier it is to reduce friction and support a more effective marketplace.
“IREF was founded on the belief that strong insurance regulation is supported by strong education,” said James Schacht, IREF founder and President and board member. “For decades, we’ve worked to create meaningful learning opportunities for regulators, and the Financial Regulators Program continues that legacy by bringing regulators together to learn from experts and from one another.”
A Broader View of the Work
The addition of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa brings new academic perspectives to that longstanding mission. Dr. Martin Grace, of the University of Iowa, and Dr. Ty Leverty, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are helping shape the program’s next chapter, drawing on their work in insurance, risk management and regulation while also learning directly from the regulators participating in the program.
Grace described one of the program’s most important benefits as the chance for regulators — many of them relatively early in their careers — to step back from their individual roles and see a broader view of the system, beyond the area of responsibility they already know well. He described it as a chance to “take your head out of the trench and look around to see what else is going on.”
That was reflected in this year’s curriculum, which moved from practical instruction on financial analysis and examinations into reinsurance, catastrophe modeling, insurer reserving, climate risk, private equity and credit, and cyber risk. Leverty saw an intentional progression during the week, from the “very practical knowledge” regulators use every day toward broader issues offering “deeper insights of how the industry works and how the different parties work together.” Across those subjects, he heard a consistent message from presenters: what regulators do is vital to the industry’s success.
Collaboration Is Central to the Model
No single organization brings all of the perspectives necessary to create that experience. The strength of the Financial Regulators Program comes in large part from collaboration.
IREF provides the foundation and focus, carrying forward a decades-long commitment to timely, relevant education for insurance regulators, while Griffith has worked alongside IREF for several years to help develop programming and bring additional expertise into the classroom.
Academic partners add another important perspective. For more than two decades, Illinois State University’s Katie School of Insurance and Risk Management played that role; in 2026, the academic collaboration entered a new phase with Wisconsin-Madison and Iowa. Grace and Leverty saw an opportunity to combine the strengths of their respective insurance programs and faculty while working closely with IREF and Griffith to continue evolving the program.
For Leverty, the connection is especially fitting because of the “Wisconsin Idea,” the university’s longstanding belief that its research and education should extend beyond the classroom and serve society more broadly. The exchange also benefits the academics: Leverty said spending time with regulators gave him a better understanding of their day-to-day responsibilities and will inform his research and teaching.
“As we begin this new chapter for the program, working with Ty Leverty and Martin Grace has reinforced our confidence in the path we have chosen. Both share our vision for this unique program,” said IREF President James Schacht.
I concur with Mr. Schacht and share his confidence in where it is headed.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners also plays an important role: NAIC experts led substantive portions of this year’s curriculum, including risk-focused financial analysis, examination practices and ORSA, and contributed expertise to the catastrophe modeling session. Together, those regulatory, academic and educational perspectives are what make the model work.
Building a Network Along with Knowledge
There is another benefit to gathering this group in one place. Participants aren’t only learning from the people at the front of the room — they’re spending several days with regulators from other states at similar points in their careers, confronting similar questions. “This gives them a network that they don’t necessarily have just being young in the field,” Grace said. That network matters in a state-based regulatory system, where departments differ but many questions around solvency, emerging risks and effective oversight are shared.
Next year, the program moves to the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and its organizers are already considering how the curriculum can keep evolving based on what this year’s participants taught them.
But what makes the program distinctive should remain: bring a small group of regulators together, give them access to people with different expertise, create room for questions beyond their everyday responsibilities, and help them see how their work fits into something larger. As Grace put it, the program helps regulators “fill in what other people are doing … in the space that you are actually working in.” For a group whose work is vital to the financial strength of the insurance system, that broader understanding is worth cultivating. &
