Presented by The Capitol Forum
Thursday, November 12, 2026
National Press Club | Washington, D.C.
Check-in and registration begin at 9:30 a.m.
Program concludes promptly at 4:00 p.m.
The life and annuity industry is undergoing a significant transformation. Private capital, increasingly complex investment strategies, opaque credit ratings and reinsurance arrangements, and growing interconnectedness among insurers, reinsurers and asset managers are reshaping a sector long associated with conservative balance sheets and long-term obligations.
The Capitol Forum will convene regulators, insurance executives, investors, academics, consumer advocates and policymakers for a day of discussion examining where risk may be accumulating, whether disclosure and regulatory oversight are keeping pace, and what these changes could mean for policyholders, investors and the broader financial system.
The program will feature fireside conversations with Renita Marcellin, Senior Economic Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and Jen Howard of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Monopoly Busters Caucus, along with a closing keynote from Andrew Granato, Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
Discussions will explore six areas central to The Capitol Forum’s coverage of the life and annuity industry:
This event is complimentary. Registration is required and space is limited.
Important Information for Registered Attendees: Please watch for your confirmation email, which will include a calendar reminder and your unique QR code required for entry. Be prepared to present your QR code on your mobile device at check-in.
We look forward to welcoming you to Washington, D.C.
Renita Marcellin serves as Senior Economic Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor to National Credit Union Administration Board Member Tanya Otsuka and as Advocacy and Legislative Director at Americans for Financial Reform, where she focused on a range of issues spanning the financial services sector, including capital markets, banking, and consumer protection. Earlier in her career, she worked at JPMorgan Chase, focusing on anti-money laundering controls. Renita has testified before Congress on financial regulatory issues and brings extensive experience spanning the private sector, public policy advocacy, and federal financial regulation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Baruch College and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University.
Jen Howard currently runs the Monopoly Busters Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to that, she served as a senior policy fellow at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Ms. Howard has spent most of her career tackling key pocketbook economic issues at various agencies across federal government. As the Department of Transportation’s first-ever chief competition officer, she focused on airline consolidation and passenger protection initiatives, including rules banning junk fees and requiring automatic refunds for delayed or canceled flights. Before DOT, she served as chief of staff of the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan and as chief of staff to then-FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra. In these roles, she worked to maximize agency authority to target illegal mergers, advance rules on click-to-cancel, non-compete clauses, junk fees, and commercial surveillance, and broaden public engagement. Earlier, she established and led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Communications and served on the CFPB implementation team at the Department of the Treasury. Her federal service began at the Federal Communications Commission as spokesperson for the FCC Chairman. She holds a B.A. from Loyola University Chicago and an M.A. from Georgetown University.
Andrew Granato is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law and a legal economist whose research focuses on tax, business and securities law, corporate finance and insurance. His recent work examines life insurance, private-equity financing and the relationship between private credit and state insurance guaranty systems. He previously worked as a Senior Associate Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Jon Godfread has served as North Dakota’s Insurance Commissioner since 2016 and was re-elected in 2020 and 2024. A nationally recognized leader in insurance policy and regulation, he has focused on consumer protection, regulatory modernization, emerging technologies and healthcare reinsurance. His peers elected him to serve as the 2025 President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
Before taking office, Godfread served as Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the Greater North Dakota Chamber. He holds a Juris Doctor and an MBA from the University of North Dakota and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa.
Mariana Gomez-Vock is Senior Vice President, Prudential Policy & International at the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), where she leads the association’s work on domestic and international solvency, capital, accounting, and prudential regulatory issues. She represents life insurers before U.S. and international regulatory bodies, including the NAIC, IAIS, and other global standard-setting organizations. She also co-chairs the Global Federation of Insurance Associations Life Insurer Structural Shifts Working Group.
Mariana’s expertise includes navigating complex political and regulatory environments, providing strategic guidance on public policy, and building consensus-based positions that support life insurers’ ability to provide American families with long-term financial protection and retirement security.
Mariana attended the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.) and American University (J.D.) and resides in Washington, DC.
Pranjal Drall is a J.D.-Ph.D. student in Financial Economics at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management. His research focuses on financial regulation, bankruptcy, and energy law and policy. He is co-author with Andrew Granato of forthcoming research examining private credit, private equity-backed life insurers, and state insurance guaranty systems.
Rod Dubitsky is the founder of The People’s Economist and has more than 30 years of experience across financial services and global development. He previously served as Executive Vice President at PIMCO Advisory and as Managing Director and Head of Residential Mortgage-Backed and Asset-Backed Securities Research at Credit Suisse. His current work examines private credit, insurance, structured finance and risks across the financial system.
Tom Gober is the founder of Deep Dive Analytics and a Certified Fraud Examiner and forensic accountant who has spent approximately four decades analyzing the financial reporting of U.S. insurance companies. A former insurance examiner and examiner-in-charge, his work today focuses on life and annuity company financial condition, statutory reporting, reinsurance, private credit and balance-sheet transparency.
Michelle is a highly experienced insurance industry executive and intellectual property developer with twenty-five years of experience in the insurance and advisory industries. Currently the SVP, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Retirement & Advisory at Axonic Insurance, she most recently simultaneously operated her own strategic consultancy MRG Advisors, primarily serving insurers and financial institutions on program development at the intersection between ERISA and annuities, while also leading the nonprofit Institutional Retirement Income Council which advocates for Defined Contribution income. Michelle previously served as Managing Director, Retirement Enhancement Solutions at Milliman Inc, developing nonguaranteed longevity risk-pooled products.
Michelle began her life and annuity career at New York Life Insurance Company, where she held various executive positions including overseeing product development for accumulation-oriented life insurance products and serving as regulatory principal and strategic overseer for its distributing Broker Dealer and Registered Investment Adviser, and as an intellectual property developer named on a patented method for the inclusion of insured solutions within holistic lifetime wealth optimization.
Michelle graduated from Columbia University with an MBA in Finance and Management, and from Wesleyan University with a BA in Economics.
Sridhar Manyem is Senior Director of Industry Research, Analytics and Public Relations at AM Best, where he leads the industry research team and develops the company’s perspectives on emerging issues affecting the insurance industry and their potential implications for Best’s Credit Ratings.
Before joining AM Best in 2017, Manyem held senior roles at the World Bank, Standard & Poor’s and Nationwide Insurance, with experience spanning reinsurance credit risk, insurer ratings, enterprise risk management, asset-liability management and risk modeling. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He also teaches finance, insurance and risk management as an adjunct faculty member at Rowan University.
Carmi Margalit is a Managing Director and the Life Insurance Sector Lead for the North American Financial Services Ratings group. Carmi leads the group’s research, commentary and analytical outreach efforts on life insurance. He serves as the subject matter expert on life and annuities in North America and is one of the primary voices of S&P Global’s interactions with the market in the sector. He directly covers a portfolio of high profile life insurers and follows the entire sector very closely.
Prior to his current role, Carmi was the analytical manager of the life and health insurance team; he was an analyst on the life team and in the structured finance group before that.
Carmi is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.A. in industrial engineering from the Tel Aviv University.
Nick Nemeth is the author of Mispriced Assets, where he writes about public and private markets, private credit, alternative asset managers and financial-system risk. His recent research has included detailed analysis of private-credit portfolios, valuations and the connections between private markets and the life and annuity industry.
Sangmin “Simon” Oh is an Assistant Professor of Business in the Finance Division at Columbia Business School. His research focuses on asset pricing, investments and insurance markets, and his recent work includes research examining credit ratings and risks within financial markets. Before entering academia, he worked at AQR Capital Management and Forefront Capital Management.
Kerry Pechter is the founder, editor and publisher of Retirement Income Journal, an independent publication covering the annuity, retirement-income and financial-advice industries. He is the author of Annuities for Dummies and previously worked as an editor of Annuity Market News and in Vanguard’s individual annuity business. His reporting has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Edward Stone is the founder of Edward Stone Law P.C., with more than 30 years of experience in the insurance, structured settlement, life settlement and specialty finance industries. His practice has represented annuity recipients affected by the Executive Life Insurance Company of New York liquidation and individuals harmed by predatory structured settlement transactions.
Stone serves as Special Counsel to the Association of BellTel Retirees and Executive Director of Retirees for Justice, advocating for pension protections and greater transparency in pension risk transfers. He has testified before the ERISA Advisory Council on financial disclosure and fiduciary standards and worked with state legislators to advance retiree protections.
Stone holds a B.A. from Clark University and a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Chris Tobe is Chief Investment Officer of Hackett Robertson Tobe and an investment consultant, author and expert witness with extensive experience in institutional investing, pensions and fiduciary matters. Through Tobe Consultants, he also advises on litigation involving retirement plans and investment management and has authored several books addressing pension and retirement investing.
Cory Zass is the founder, principal and consulting actuary of Actuarial Risk Management. A life insurance actuary with more than 25 years of experience, he has advised insurers on financial reporting, capital strategy, product management, asset-liability management and mergers and acquisitions. His experience has included roles as a chief actuary, appointed actuary, auditing actuary and regulatory actuary.
Teddy Downey is the CEO and Executive Editor at The Capitol Forum, guiding its growth into a leading source for investigative reporting on antitrust, trade, and regulatory policy. Named one of Washington, D.C.’s “500 Most Influential People” by Washingtonian magazine for the last five years, he also hosts The Second Request and Private Credit Crisis podcasts, where he speaks with influential voices in policy, law, and industry about competition and enforcement.
Kim Geiger is a Senior Correspondent at The Capitol Forum and an investigative journalist whose work focuses on public policy, politics and lobbying. Before joining The Capitol Forum, she conducted investigations of casino operators and education providers for the Chicago Tribune and previously covered state government and politics for the newspaper. Earlier, she spent several years in Washington covering special-interest influence involving health care, food and agriculture, energy regulation and worker safety for the Los Angeles Times.
Lisa Epstein is a Correspondent at The Capitol Forum covering consumer protection and financial regulatory issues. Before joining the team, she worked as a consumer fraud investigator and played a role in exposing practices in the mortgage servicing industry that led to multi-agency regulatory enforcement actions. Earlier in her career, she worked with law firms on pretrial research and previously practiced as a pediatric and adult oncology nurse.
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
The conference will be held at the National Press Club in downtown Washington, D.C., located on the 13th floor of the National Press Building. The venue is easily accessible by Metro, with Metro Center the closest station. Guests using Metro can take the 13th Street exit and walk approximately two blocks to the National Press Building.
Check-in and registration begin at 9:30 am.
Attendance is complimentary and invitation-only, and space is limited.
Please note that you will receive a confirmation email containing a unique QR code required for entry.
Please have your QR code available when you arrive. It may be presented directly from your mobile phone.
We recommend allowing additional time for check-in before the program begins.
Metro: Metro Center, 13th Street exit
Address: 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045
Floor: 13th Floor
The National Press Club also provides nearby parking and valet options for guests arriving by car.
Thursday, November 12, 2026
National Press Club | Washington, D.C.
Renita Marcellin, Senior Economic Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
In conversation with Teddy Downey, Executive Editor, The Capitol Forum.
How Life and Annuity Became a Private-Capital Business
How did an industry once known for its conservative business model become increasingly intertwined with complex financial instruments and private markets?
This panel will examine the evolution of life insurers’ investment portfolios, the growing importance of annuities, the search for yield during the prolonged low-interest-rate environment, the rise of private equity and alternative asset managers, and expanding allocations to private credit.
Panelists:
Moderator: Teddy Downey, The Capitol Forum
How has the new model increased pressure on insurers to find new sources of capital? Where do liabilities ultimately reside, and how are they backed by assets? Has reinsurance, traditionally a mechanism for managing risk, become a potential source of risk itself?
This panel will examine annuities, reinsurance arrangements, funding agreements and funding agreement-backed notes and the implications of increasingly complex liability structures for insurers and policyholders.
Panelists:
Moderator: Kim Geiger, The Capitol Forum
Jen Howard, Monopoly Busters Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives
In conversation with Teddy Downey, Executive Editor, The Capitol Forum.
What assets are being originated, who earns the economics and what risks are being created?
This panel will explore private credit investments, credit ratings, Level 3 assets and commercial real estate investments, including their implications for insurer balance sheets, leverage, policyholders and the broader financial system.
The discussion will also examine whether public disclosure is keeping pace with increasingly complex investment strategies, including differences between statutory and GAAP reporting, cross-holdings, concentration risk, opaque credit ratings and limitations in Schedule BA and Schedule D reporting.
Panelists:
Moderator: Lisa Epstein, The Capitol Forum
What happens when the current insurance business model encounters significant credit or liquidity stress? Are comparisons to past financial crises warranted?
The final panel will examine risks to policyholders and beneficiaries, the role and potential limitations of state guaranty systems, reinsurance arrangements, and how financial stress could spread across insurers, investors and the broader financial system, potentially reaching taxpayers.
Panelists:
Moderator: Teddy Downey, The Capitol Forum
Andrew Granato, Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Granato is a legal economist whose research examines corporate finance, insurance, private-equity financing and the relationship between private credit and state insurance guaranty systems. He previously served as a Senior Associate Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Agenda subject to change.
Presented by The Capitol Forum
Thursday, November 12, 2026
National Press Club | Washington, D.C.
Check-in and registration begin at 9:30 a.m.
Program concludes promptly at 4:00 p.m.
The life and annuity industry is undergoing a significant transformation. Private capital, increasingly complex investment strategies, opaque credit ratings and reinsurance arrangements, and growing interconnectedness among insurers, reinsurers and asset managers are reshaping a sector long associated with conservative balance sheets and long-term obligations.
The Capitol Forum will convene regulators, insurance executives, investors, academics, consumer advocates and policymakers for a day of discussion examining where risk may be accumulating, whether disclosure and regulatory oversight are keeping pace, and what these changes could mean for policyholders, investors and the broader financial system.
The program will feature fireside conversations with Renita Marcellin, Senior Economic Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and Jen Howard of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Monopoly Busters Caucus, along with a closing keynote from Andrew Granato, Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
Discussions will explore six areas central to The Capitol Forum’s coverage of the life and annuity industry:
This event is complimentary. Registration is required and space is limited.
Important Information for Registered Attendees: Please watch for your confirmation email, which will include a calendar reminder and your unique QR code required for entry. Be prepared to present your QR code on your mobile device at check-in.
We look forward to welcoming you to Washington, D.C.
Renita Marcellin serves as Senior Economic Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor to National Credit Union Administration Board Member Tanya Otsuka and as Advocacy and Legislative Director at Americans for Financial Reform, where she focused on a range of issues spanning the financial services sector, including capital markets, banking, and consumer protection. Earlier in her career, she worked at JPMorgan Chase, focusing on anti-money laundering controls. Renita has testified before Congress on financial regulatory issues and brings extensive experience spanning the private sector, public policy advocacy, and federal financial regulation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Baruch College and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University.
Jen Howard currently runs the Monopoly Busters Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to that, she served as a senior policy fellow at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Ms. Howard has spent most of her career tackling key pocketbook economic issues at various agencies across federal government. As the Department of Transportation’s first-ever chief competition officer, she focused on airline consolidation and passenger protection initiatives, including rules banning junk fees and requiring automatic refunds for delayed or canceled flights. Before DOT, she served as chief of staff of the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan and as chief of staff to then-FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra. In these roles, she worked to maximize agency authority to target illegal mergers, advance rules on click-to-cancel, non-compete clauses, junk fees, and commercial surveillance, and broaden public engagement. Earlier, she established and led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Communications and served on the CFPB implementation team at the Department of the Treasury. Her federal service began at the Federal Communications Commission as spokesperson for the FCC Chairman. She holds a B.A. from Loyola University Chicago and an M.A. from Georgetown University.
Andrew Granato is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law and a legal economist whose research focuses on tax, business and securities law, corporate finance and insurance. His recent work examines life insurance, private-equity financing and the relationship between private credit and state insurance guaranty systems. He previously worked as a Senior Associate Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Jon Godfread has served as North Dakota’s Insurance Commissioner since 2016 and was re-elected in 2020 and 2024. A nationally recognized leader in insurance policy and regulation, he has focused on consumer protection, regulatory modernization, emerging technologies and healthcare reinsurance. His peers elected him to serve as the 2025 President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
Before taking office, Godfread served as Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the Greater North Dakota Chamber. He holds a Juris Doctor and an MBA from the University of North Dakota and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa.
Mariana Gomez-Vock is Senior Vice President, Prudential Policy & International at the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), where she leads the association’s work on domestic and international solvency, capital, accounting, and prudential regulatory issues. She represents life insurers before U.S. and international regulatory bodies, including the NAIC, IAIS, and other global standard-setting organizations. She also co-chairs the Global Federation of Insurance Associations Life Insurer Structural Shifts Working Group.
Mariana’s expertise includes navigating complex political and regulatory environments, providing strategic guidance on public policy, and building consensus-based positions that support life insurers’ ability to provide American families with long-term financial protection and retirement security.
Mariana attended the University of California, Berkeley (B.A.) and American University (J.D.) and resides in Washington, DC.
Pranjal Drall is a J.D.-Ph.D. student in Financial Economics at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management. His research focuses on financial regulation, bankruptcy, and energy law and policy. He is co-author with Andrew Granato of forthcoming research examining private credit, private equity-backed life insurers, and state insurance guaranty systems.
Rod Dubitsky is the founder of The People’s Economist and has more than 30 years of experience across financial services and global development. He previously served as Executive Vice President at PIMCO Advisory and as Managing Director and Head of Residential Mortgage-Backed and Asset-Backed Securities Research at Credit Suisse. His current work examines private credit, insurance, structured finance and risks across the financial system.
Tom Gober is the founder of Deep Dive Analytics and a Certified Fraud Examiner and forensic accountant who has spent approximately four decades analyzing the financial reporting of U.S. insurance companies. A former insurance examiner and examiner-in-charge, his work today focuses on life and annuity company financial condition, statutory reporting, reinsurance, private credit and balance-sheet transparency.
Michelle is a highly experienced insurance industry executive and intellectual property developer with twenty-five years of experience in the insurance and advisory industries. Currently the SVP, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Retirement & Advisory at Axonic Insurance, she most recently simultaneously operated her own strategic consultancy MRG Advisors, primarily serving insurers and financial institutions on program development at the intersection between ERISA and annuities, while also leading the nonprofit Institutional Retirement Income Council which advocates for Defined Contribution income. Michelle previously served as Managing Director, Retirement Enhancement Solutions at Milliman Inc, developing nonguaranteed longevity risk-pooled products.
Michelle began her life and annuity career at New York Life Insurance Company, where she held various executive positions including overseeing product development for accumulation-oriented life insurance products and serving as regulatory principal and strategic overseer for its distributing Broker Dealer and Registered Investment Adviser, and as an intellectual property developer named on a patented method for the inclusion of insured solutions within holistic lifetime wealth optimization.
Michelle graduated from Columbia University with an MBA in Finance and Management, and from Wesleyan University with a BA in Economics.
Sridhar Manyem is Senior Director of Industry Research, Analytics and Public Relations at AM Best, where he leads the industry research team and develops the company’s perspectives on emerging issues affecting the insurance industry and their potential implications for Best’s Credit Ratings.
Before joining AM Best in 2017, Manyem held senior roles at the World Bank, Standard & Poor’s and Nationwide Insurance, with experience spanning reinsurance credit risk, insurer ratings, enterprise risk management, asset-liability management and risk modeling. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He also teaches finance, insurance and risk management as an adjunct faculty member at Rowan University.
Carmi Margalit is a Managing Director and the Life Insurance Sector Lead for the North American Financial Services Ratings group. Carmi leads the group’s research, commentary and analytical outreach efforts on life insurance. He serves as the subject matter expert on life and annuities in North America and is one of the primary voices of S&P Global’s interactions with the market in the sector. He directly covers a portfolio of high profile life insurers and follows the entire sector very closely.
Prior to his current role, Carmi was the analytical manager of the life and health insurance team; he was an analyst on the life team and in the structured finance group before that.
Carmi is a Chartered Financial Analyst, holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.A. in industrial engineering from the Tel Aviv University.
Nick Nemeth is the author of Mispriced Assets, where he writes about public and private markets, private credit, alternative asset managers and financial-system risk. His recent research has included detailed analysis of private-credit portfolios, valuations and the connections between private markets and the life and annuity industry.
Sangmin “Simon” Oh is an Assistant Professor of Business in the Finance Division at Columbia Business School. His research focuses on asset pricing, investments and insurance markets, and his recent work includes research examining credit ratings and risks within financial markets. Before entering academia, he worked at AQR Capital Management and Forefront Capital Management.
Kerry Pechter is the founder, editor and publisher of Retirement Income Journal, an independent publication covering the annuity, retirement-income and financial-advice industries. He is the author of Annuities for Dummies and previously worked as an editor of Annuity Market News and in Vanguard’s individual annuity business. His reporting has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Edward Stone is the founder of Edward Stone Law P.C., with more than 30 years of experience in the insurance, structured settlement, life settlement and specialty finance industries. His practice has represented annuity recipients affected by the Executive Life Insurance Company of New York liquidation and individuals harmed by predatory structured settlement transactions.
Stone serves as Special Counsel to the Association of BellTel Retirees and Executive Director of Retirees for Justice, advocating for pension protections and greater transparency in pension risk transfers. He has testified before the ERISA Advisory Council on financial disclosure and fiduciary standards and worked with state legislators to advance retiree protections.
Stone holds a B.A. from Clark University and a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Chris Tobe is Chief Investment Officer of Hackett Robertson Tobe and an investment consultant, author and expert witness with extensive experience in institutional investing, pensions and fiduciary matters. Through Tobe Consultants, he also advises on litigation involving retirement plans and investment management and has authored several books addressing pension and retirement investing.
Cory Zass is the founder, principal and consulting actuary of Actuarial Risk Management. A life insurance actuary with more than 25 years of experience, he has advised insurers on financial reporting, capital strategy, product management, asset-liability management and mergers and acquisitions. His experience has included roles as a chief actuary, appointed actuary, auditing actuary and regulatory actuary.
Teddy Downey is the CEO and Executive Editor at The Capitol Forum, guiding its growth into a leading source for investigative reporting on antitrust, trade, and regulatory policy. Named one of Washington, D.C.’s “500 Most Influential People” by Washingtonian magazine for the last five years, he also hosts The Second Request and Private Credit Crisis podcasts, where he speaks with influential voices in policy, law, and industry about competition and enforcement.
Kim Geiger is a Senior Correspondent at The Capitol Forum and an investigative journalist whose work focuses on public policy, politics and lobbying. Before joining The Capitol Forum, she conducted investigations of casino operators and education providers for the Chicago Tribune and previously covered state government and politics for the newspaper. Earlier, she spent several years in Washington covering special-interest influence involving health care, food and agriculture, energy regulation and worker safety for the Los Angeles Times.
Lisa Epstein is a Correspondent at The Capitol Forum covering consumer protection and financial regulatory issues. Before joining the team, she worked as a consumer fraud investigator and played a role in exposing practices in the mortgage servicing industry that led to multi-agency regulatory enforcement actions. Earlier in her career, she worked with law firms on pretrial research and previously practiced as a pediatric and adult oncology nurse.
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
The conference will be held at the National Press Club in downtown Washington, D.C., located on the 13th floor of the National Press Building. The venue is easily accessible by Metro, with Metro Center the closest station. Guests using Metro can take the 13th Street exit and walk approximately two blocks to the National Press Building.
Check-in and registration begin at 9:30 am.
Attendance is complimentary and invitation-only, and space is limited.
Please note that you will receive a confirmation email containing a unique QR code required for entry.
Please have your QR code available when you arrive. It may be presented directly from your mobile phone.
We recommend allowing additional time for check-in before the program begins.
Metro: Metro Center, 13th Street exit
Address: 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045
Floor: 13th Floor
The National Press Club also provides nearby parking and valet options for guests arriving by car.
Thursday, November 12, 2026
National Press Club | Washington, D.C.
Renita Marcellin, Senior Economic Advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
In conversation with Teddy Downey, Executive Editor, The Capitol Forum.
How Life and Annuity Became a Private-Capital Business
How did an industry once known for its conservative business model become increasingly intertwined with complex financial instruments and private markets?
This panel will examine the evolution of life insurers’ investment portfolios, the growing importance of annuities, the search for yield during the prolonged low-interest-rate environment, the rise of private equity and alternative asset managers, and expanding allocations to private credit.
Panelists:
Moderator: Teddy Downey, The Capitol Forum
How has the new model increased pressure on insurers to find new sources of capital? Where do liabilities ultimately reside, and how are they backed by assets? Has reinsurance, traditionally a mechanism for managing risk, become a potential source of risk itself?
This panel will examine annuities, reinsurance arrangements, funding agreements and funding agreement-backed notes and the implications of increasingly complex liability structures for insurers and policyholders.
Panelists:
Moderator: Kim Geiger, The Capitol Forum
Jen Howard, Monopoly Busters Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives
In conversation with Teddy Downey, Executive Editor, The Capitol Forum.
What assets are being originated, who earns the economics and what risks are being created?
This panel will explore private credit investments, credit ratings, Level 3 assets and commercial real estate investments, including their implications for insurer balance sheets, leverage, policyholders and the broader financial system.
The discussion will also examine whether public disclosure is keeping pace with increasingly complex investment strategies, including differences between statutory and GAAP reporting, cross-holdings, concentration risk, opaque credit ratings and limitations in Schedule BA and Schedule D reporting.
Panelists:
Moderator: Lisa Epstein, The Capitol Forum
What happens when the current insurance business model encounters significant credit or liquidity stress? Are comparisons to past financial crises warranted?
The final panel will examine risks to policyholders and beneficiaries, the role and potential limitations of state guaranty systems, reinsurance arrangements, and how financial stress could spread across insurers, investors and the broader financial system, potentially reaching taxpayers.
Panelists:
Moderator: Teddy Downey, The Capitol Forum
Andrew Granato, Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Granato is a legal economist whose research examines corporate finance, insurance, private-equity financing and the relationship between private credit and state insurance guaranty systems. He previously served as a Senior Associate Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Agenda subject to change.
Fill out the following form to reserve your spot.
Thank you for registering for this event. We look forward to seeing you soon!
