[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





 
                       A REVIEW OF DIVERSITY AND


                         INCLUSION AT AMERICA'S


                      LARGEST INSURANCE COMPANIES

=======================================================================

                             HYBRID HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIVERSITY

                             AND INCLUSION

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

                           Serial No. 117-99
                           
                           
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                           ______
  
               U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 48-839 PDF          WASHINGTON : 2022 
                           
                           

                 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                 MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         PATRICK McHENRY, North Carolina, 
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York             Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York           BILL POSEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia                 BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANDY BARR, Kentucky
JIM A. HIMES, Connecticut            ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                FRENCH HILL, Arkansas
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   TOM EMMER, Minnesota
JUAN VARGAS, California              LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey          BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
AL LAWSON, Florida                   WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
MICHAEL SAN NICOLAS, Guam            TED BUDD, North Carolina
CINDY AXNE, Iowa                     TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts       JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      LANCE GOODEN, Texas
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina           WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              VAN TAYLOR, Texas
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         PETE SESSIONS, Texas
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York   RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts

                   Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director
                Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion

                     JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio, Chairwoman

AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts       ANN WAGNER, Missouri, Ranking 
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts          Member
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         TED BUDD, North Carolina
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas, Vice Chair     ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio, Vice 
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia                 Ranking Member
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts      JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
                                     LANCE GOODEN, Texas
                                     WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
                                     
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on:
    September 20, 2022...........................................     1
Appendix:
    September 20, 2022...........................................    31

                               WITNESSES
                      Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Domingo, Eloiza, Vice President, Human Resources, and Chief 
  Inclusive Diversity & Equity Officer, Allstate.................     4
Lindley-Myers, Chlora, Director, Missouri Department of Commerce 
  and Insurance, on behalf of the National Association of 
  Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).................................     7
Nunery, Leroy D. II, President, Evolution Advisors, LLC..........     6
Ross, Kimberly W., Senior Vice President, Federal Relations, 
  American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI).......................     9
Webel, Baird, Specialist in Financial Economics, Congressional 
  Research Service (CRS).........................................    10

                                APPENDIX

Prepared statements:
    Domingo, Eloiza..............................................    32
    Lindley-Myers, Chlora........................................    38
    Nunery, Leroy D. II..........................................    42
    Ross, Kimberly W.............................................    70
    Webel, Baird.................................................    80


                       A REVIEW OF DIVERSITY AND

                         INCLUSION AT AMERICA'S

                      LARGEST INSURANCE COMPANIES

                              ----------                              


                      Tuesday, September 20, 2022

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                  Subcommittee on Diversity
                             and Inclusion,
                   Committee on Financial Services,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:53 p.m., in 
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joyce Beatty 
[chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Beatty, Lynch, Tlaib, 
Dean, Garcia of Texas, Williams of Georgia, Auchincloss; 
Wagner, Gonzalez of Ohio, Rose, and Timmons.
    Ex officio present: Representative Waters.
    Chairwoman Beatty. The Subcommittee on Diversity and 
Inclusion will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is 
authorized to declare a recess of the subcommittee at any time. 
Also, without objection, members of the full Financial Services 
Committee who are not members of this subcommittee are 
authorized to participate in today's hearing.
    Today's hearing is entitled, ``A Review of Diversity and 
Inclusion at America's Largest Insurance Companies.''
    I will now recognize myself for 4 minutes, but before the 
clock starts, let me just say to the witnesses and the audience 
that due to the business of the House, the time of this hearing 
had to be changed, so we lost several of our Members due to 
their leadership roles in other committees, but I assure you 
that the ranking member and I, and our colleagues, both 
virtually and here, will give you our full attention. Now, I 
recognize myself for 4 minutes to give an opening statement.
    Today, we are here to discuss diversity and inclusion at 
America's largest insurance companies. When I became Chair of 
this D&I Subcommittee, I made a commitment to investigate the 
state of diversity and inclusion in the financial services 
sector, not only because the composition of the industry should 
mirror the diversity of this country, but also because study 
after study after study has shown that diverse and inclusive 
companies are more productive and more profitable. We started 
by looking at banks and investment firms earlier in this 
Congress, and we discovered that women and minorities are 
unrepresented at these institutions.
    This hearing, the third in a series, takes a closer look at 
insurance companies. Think about it, while no one is required 
to have a bank account or make investments, most people are 
required to have some type of insurance. For example, you need 
car insurance to drive a car or mortgage insurance to buy a 
house. The insurance industry touches the lives of nearly every 
American and has assets totaling nearly $6 trillion.
    That is why earlier this year, Chairwoman Waters and I sent 
letters to 27 of the largest property, casualty, and life 
insurance companies requesting data on their diversity and 
inclusion policies and practices. And I am happy to report that 
all 27 companies submitted data in response to our request.
    After months of analysis, the committee staff published a 
report earlier this week entitled, ``Diversity and Inclusion: 
Holding America's Largest Insurance Companies Accountable.'' 
This comprehensive report evaluates diversity in six different 
categories: overall workforce; executive leadership; CEOs; 
board diversity; suppliers; and investment assets. The results 
were disappointing. We found that the largest insurance 
companies are lagging behind in the same things we measured at 
banks and investment firms. On average, only 30 percent of 
employees at the largest insurance companies are people of 
color, compared to just over 40 percent at banks and investment 
firms.
    Of equal concern is the finding that women and minority 
representation is concentrated at the lower level, and drops 
significantly the higher up you go on the corporate ladder. For 
example, 77 percent of administrative support employees 
identified as women, compared to 34 percent at the executive 
level, and 28.5 percent at the board of directors' level. 
Although some firms are doing better in certain categories, 
none are meeting expectations in every category. This report 
shows that there is still plenty of work for us to do, and I am 
proud that we are starting the work today with this report and 
this hearing.
    I am thankful for our witnesses here today, and note that 
the CEOs who were invited to testify declined. Let the record 
show that I am going to invite all 27 CEOs to meet on a Zoom 
meeting with me, and I certainly will invite the ranking 
member. This country is rich with diversity, a diverse 
reservoir of talent, and it is time that we start harnessing 
that resource to make our institutions stronger and better.
    Let me just say, there is no one solution to the problem of 
diversity and equity. We all have to work together, and learn 
from each other, and do our part to achieve a more inclusive 
system that offers opportunities to all.
    I now recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, my 
colleague, and friend, and it is my honor to yield 5 minutes to 
Congresswoman Ann Wagner from Missouri for 5 minutes for her 
opening statement.
    Mrs. Wagner. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I want to 
thank our witnesses who are here both in person and virtually 
for testifying before our subcommittee today.
    Today's panel includes witnesses representing multiple 
parts of the insurance industry. I would like to specifically 
welcome a fellow Missourian, Chlora Lindley-Myers, who is the 
director of the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance. 
Thank you for joining us today. I'll look forward to hearing 
all of your testimony and taking this opportunity to learn more 
about the achievements being made within your industry.
    While the insurance industry has made great strides over 
the past few years in improving overall workforce diversity, 
Republicans agree that insurance companies can build upon the 
progress that has been made to improve diversity, particularly 
within its leadership. Republicans also agree with certain 
recommendations made in the Majority's report, and indeed, many 
of the companies sampled have already implemented some of these 
recommendations.
    In particular, the Majority recommended that companies 
partner with Historically Black Colleges and Universities 
(HBCUs) to build talent pipelines, and 100 percent of the 
sampled companies already do so. Next, to develop workforce 
diversity goals that are made public, and 96 percent of the 
sampled companies already do so.
    Third, to routinely evaluate existing diversity and 
inclusion programs to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency 
of programs, and 92 percent already do so. And fourth, to have 
a lead diversity officer who can inform strategic discussions 
across the C-suite, and 96.2 percent already do so.
    I am glad to see some progress that the private sector has 
already made in these categories without government 
intervention. In addition, there is bipartisan support for 
training academies that educate employees on job opportunities 
and match graduates with mentors and sponsors to support their 
career goals.
    These best practices will be especially effective in 
combating the challenges that companies face in increasing 
diversity, specifically within their leadership ranks as 
compared with overall workforce diversity, which is much closer 
to mirroring the general population. However, I do want to 
reiterate my concern and opposition to any legislative efforts 
that impose mandatory reporting regimes on companies that are 
diverse in their size, location, mission, strengths, and 
challenges. It is clear that while diversity and inclusion 
within the industry has greatly improved, insurance companies 
still have much room for growth in several categories. 
Companies that are still facing challenges can learn from the 
successes of their peers and implement similar strategies.
    I look forward to learning more today about the best 
practices and strategies within the insurance industry.
    I thank the Chair, and I yield back.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    Now, I am honored to recognize the Chair of the full 
Financial Services Committee, a long-time leader and advocate 
for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), the gentlewoman 
from California, Chairwoman Maxine Waters.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you so very much, Chairwoman 
Beatty.
    I am proud that we are releasing a third in an 
unprecedented series of reports examining diversity and 
inclusion within the financial services sector. This time, we 
are focused on the diversity of our nation's largest property 
and casualty and life insurance companies.
    The insurance industry is a unique sector of financial 
services that has had much less Federal oversight than the rest 
of the financial services industry because it is primarily 
regulated by the States. But insurance products are equally, if 
not more ubiquitous in the everyday lives of consumers. While 
no one is required to have a bank account or make investments, 
it is often a requirement to obtain certain types of insurance 
to drive a car or obtain a mortgage, or rent a home. The 
committee's report makes it clear that these companies still 
have much work to do to improve transparency and 
accountability.
    I look forward to discussing the findings of this report.
    And thank you, Chairwoman Beatty. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Today, we welcome the testimony of our distinguished 
witnesses: Eloiza Domingo, the vice president of human 
resources and chief inclusive diversity & equity officer at the 
Allstate Corporation; Dr. Leroy Nunery II, the president of 
Evolution Advisors, who is joining us virtually, I believe; 
Chlora Lindley-Myers, the director of the Missouri Department 
of Commerce and Insurance, testifying on behalf of the National 
Association of Insurance Commissioners, and she was also 
mentioned by our ranking member; Kimberly Ross, the senior vice 
president of Federal relations at the American Counsel of Life 
Insurers, and I would like to take the personal privilege to 
also say she is also someone who started this journey of DE&I 
with me, so it's great to see you in your new capacity; and 
Baird Webel, a specialist in financial economics at the 
Congressional Research Service.
    Witnesses are reminded that their oral testimony will be 
limited to 5 minutes. You should be able to see a timer that 
will indicate how much time you have left. I would ask that you 
be mindful of the timer so we can be respectful of both the 
witnesses' and the committee members' time.
    And without objection, your written statements will be made 
a part of the record.
    Ms. Domingo, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give 
an oral presentation on your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF ELOIZA DOMINGO, VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES, 
    AND CHIEF INCLUSIVE DIVERSITY & EQUITY OFFICER, ALLSTATE

    Ms. Domingo. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Beatty, Ranking 
Member Wagner, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, and 
other distinguished members of the committee. My name is Eloiza 
Domingo. I am the vice president of human resources and the 
chief inclusive diversity & equity officer at Allstate. Before 
I begin, I want to share my gratitude to you, Chairs Waters and 
Beatty, for creating the survey and subsequent processes.
    At Allstate, one of our leadership competencies is to 
challenge ideas, which essentially means pushing the status quo 
with the intention of making things better. I also wish to 
thank everyone who worked tirelessly on the details of today's 
hearing. I am humbled and grateful for this opportunity to be 
here and testify as you review diversity and inclusion at 
America's largest insurance companies.
    I have been in the field of diversity for over 20 years, 
serving in leadership positions within academics, 
pharmaceuticals, law enforcement, and healthcare. I have been 
honored to lead and build the strategic work at places like 
Cincinnati's Children's Hospital Medical Center, Astellas 
Pharma, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Indiana University, Miami 
University, Bucknell University, and now, at the Allstate 
Corporation. But I am more proud of being a single mom.
    I am the firstborn daughter of immigrants from the 
Philippines who moved here in the 1970s. I am raising four 
biracial boys. I have two sets of twins. My 14-year-old boys--I 
know--and my 9-year-old boys. And for all those reasons, I 
pursued this work, or maybe this work pursued me. It is why I 
am happy to be here today to support this very important 
conversation.
    At Allstate, we use the term, ``inclusive diversity & 
equity,'' or IDE on purpose. More than 20 years ago, we turned 
inclusion into an adjective because diversity is really nothing 
without an inclusive environment in which to thrive. That's 
what Allstate believes, that everyone deserves to live a life 
well-protected, everyone has a right to participate and prosper 
in an equitable society. Allstate is one of the largest 
providers of protection to consumers in the United States, 
protecting their cars, their homes, phones, personal property, 
lives, and identities with 172.8 million policies in force, and 
$39.5 billion of premiums over the last 12 months.
    We also know that true diversity changes a journey and 
requires clear planning. Our multiyear IDE corporate strategy 
was built with many stakeholders and focuses on four pillars: 
business practices; people; culture; and community. And these 
pillars clarify our drive and leadership accountability to 
comprehensively integrate IDE into our daily practices and our 
daily behaviors.
    Under these four pillars, we have achieved milestones: our 
people diversity meets or exceeds external benchmarksc, with 
women making up approximately 57 percent of our total 
workforce; 42 percent of our employees identify as racially or 
ethnically diverse; 71 percent of our leadership, which is our 
directors and above, identify as female or a person of color; 
and 60 percent of Allstate's independent directors bring 
gender, race, or ethnic diversity to the board. And we provide 
guidance and accountability to ensure that diverse talent is a 
part of our candidate slates.
    We are a founding member of OneTen, a 10-year effort to 
train, hire, and promote 1 million Black Americans who don't 
have a 4-year degree and who are making below a family-
sustaining wage. This is part of our acknowledgment of the 
wealth gap in minority communities and that Black families are 
hit the hardest. So, we have dedicated ourselves to pursue 
equity in our people practices.
    A part of Allstate's legacy is to challenge convention. We 
did this on Wall Street in 2020 when we became the first 
corporate issuer to select exclusively minority-, women-, and 
veteran-owned firms to lead a $1.2-billion bond sale, which led 
to other companies pursuing similar bond deals with diverse-
owned companies. And since 2004, we have tripled our annual 
spend with diverse suppliers to $4.7 billion.
    At Allstate, we are constantly looking for new ways to 
expand our IDE efforts. Under this strategy, we will expand our 
definition and operations of diversity to improve the way we 
support women, the LGBTQ+ population, veterans and military 
families, those with disabilities, and many other diverse 
communities in a meaningful way. And this is why I volunteered 
to be here today, to share my recommendations and my 
perspectives on inclusive diversity and equity in the insurance 
industry.
    I thank you, again, for the opportunity to address the 
committee today, and I look forward to engaging in a discussion 
together.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Domingo can be found on page 
32 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you very much, Ms. Domingo.
    Dr. Nunery, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation on your testimony.

STATEMENT OF LEROY D. NUNERY II, PRESIDENT, EVOLUTION ADVISORS, 
                              LLC

    Mr. Nunery. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Beatty, Ranking 
Member Wagner, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 
Thank you for inviting me to testify today and share with the 
subcommittee some of my work around diversity, equity, and 
inclusion on behalf of the American Property Casualty Insurance 
Association (APCIA) that I believe directly aligns with the 
important work of this committee.
    As mentioned, I am founder and principal of Plus Ultre, 
LLC, and now, president of Evolution Advisors, LLC. Evolution 
Advisors is a joint venture of Acrisure, a fintech that focuses 
on providing growth acceleration and greater access to 
minority-owned insurance agencies and brokers. In addition to 
Acrisure, our founding partners are Russell Wilson of the 
Denver Broncos, his spouse, recording star Ciara, and Russell 
Westbrook of the Los Angeles Lakers.
    I have worked as an independent consultant for APCIA since 
2020 on a variety of topics. I looked at assessing and 
advancing the industry's investment in diversity, equity, 
inclusion, and belonging. In 2019, the APCIA board of directors 
adopted DEI as a strategic priority for the trade association 
and it established a CEO-level working group on social equity 
and inclusion to oversee its initiatives and its long-term 
planning.
    The working group commissioned me to develop an anonymized 
catalog of APCIA member companies that examines diversity 
efforts among the industry's workforces, boards, and supply 
chains. The initial catalog was intended to be used as a 
measure for industry progress and accountability through 
continued analysis and ongoing updates.
    The inaugural 2020 catalog included feedback from 52 
property, casualty insurers and revealed that many companies 
have already established and made intentional investments in 
DEI. For example, 88 percent of the companies surveyed have DEI 
imbedded in their business and talent pipeline and practices, 
and their company cultures, and percent of the respondents 
undertook pay equity analysis, and this was across all sectors 
and all sizes of companies, through either internal or third-
party studies.
    Sixty-nine percent of overall company recruitment goals 
include strategies to engage in hiring diverse talent. There is 
so much more to do, but we did find it noteworthy that 
geography was the most cited challenge to DEI. Twenty-seven 
percent of the companies reported, though, that the pandemic 
actually created opportunities for recruiting and retaining 
diverse staff.
    We don't want to gloss over the findings, and there are 
areas of improvement. Seventy-three percent of the companies do 
not have, or did not have, DEI metrics included as part of 
their organizational key performance indicators. And one pillar 
area for improvement is identifying and developing more 
diversity amongst senior executives. I am happy to be 
continuing the work on the catalog this year, and our 
preliminary results so far show that the companies are making 
continual efforts, and there are some areas of improvement that 
will show up in the updated survey.
    I would also like to say that there are additional 
projects, for example, the National African American Insurance 
Association's Next Journey study, which highlights and 
coincides with what your committee found, and also what we 
found in separate research. I think insurers do understand that 
this is not about the number of diverse faces at the table, but 
the experience of those individuals once they are brought on 
board. The industry seems to be shifting from an isolated focus 
just on recruitment data, to a more inclusive picture of worker 
experience, and programs for retention.
    But there is also evidence of growing attention for 
leadership development, mentorship, and retention programs, and 
increased interest in HBCU recruitment. I am hoping we can 
continue to keep the pulse on this, and also to move it 
forward. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but we do 
think that there is some encouragements here, as long as we 
keep moving forward with intentional effort and collaboration.
    Thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Nunery can be found on page 
42 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you, Dr. Nunery.
    Ms. Lindley-Myers, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to 
give an oral presentation of your testimony.

     STATEMENT OF CHLORA LINDLEY-MYERS, DIRECTOR, MISSOURI 
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND INSURANCE, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL 
         ASSOCIATION OF INSURANCE COMMISSIONERS (NAIC)

    Ms. Lindley-Myers. Thank you so much.
    Good afternoon, Chairwoman Beatty, Ranking Member Wagner, 
and members of the subcommittee. I want to thank you for this 
invitation to testify today. We appreciate the subcommittee's 
effort to examine diversity and inclusion in the insurance 
industry. State insurance regulators are committed to working 
on inclusivity and representation in the insurance sector. This 
is an important topic, and we look forward to sharing the 
ongoing efforts of State insurance regulators to address issues 
of race and insurance.
    Our State insurance regulatory system, and insurance in 
general, reflects the society it aims to protect. Over our long 
history of protecting policyholders, addressing unfair 
treatment of consumers, and protecting solvency, insurance 
regulators have made consistent efforts to address issues of 
discrimination and market access as part of a broader 
conversation around pricing and underwriting in specific 
insurance product lines.
    However, in the wake of the 2020 national call to action on 
race and inequality, the NAIC decided it could do more and 
created a special committee on race and insurance, which I co-
chair. Included in this effort is a dedicated work stream 
focused on diversity and inclusion in the insurance industry. 
The special committee is the first of its kind in NAIC history. 
Its charge is to evaluate racial inequality in the insurance 
sector across all facets. This includes evaluating the 
insurance sector, both as providers of insurance products, and 
as employers of a large workforce.
    The creation of the special committee has elevated the 
NAIC's work surrounding race and inequality to candid, 
commissioner-level discussions on whether and how the industry 
is serving the needs of all people, policyholders and 
employees, regardless of race. A key focus is on the importance 
of recruiting, retaining, and promoting talent for a 
representative of the insurers, customers, and communities.
    To that end, we have developed broad, consensus-based 
recommendations for steps that regulators and the industry can 
take to improve the diversity in the employment pipeline and 
the resulting employee base. We recently released these draft 
recommendations for public comment, and we look forward to 
receiving feedback. We acknowledge the initiatives by the 
industry to increase DE&I in their organizations and look 
forward to continued engagement from all stakeholders as we 
finalize our recommendations.
    We are also pleased to share that the NAIC has formed the 
New Avenues in Insurance Careers Foundation. The foundation 
will focus on fostering interest in careers in insurance and 
insurance regulations, with particular focus on students from 
underserved and diverse communities. On the international 
front, the NAIC has used its platform to promote discussion of 
the DE&I issues at the International Association of Insurance 
Supervisors (IAIS). In response, the IAIS has committed to 
strengthening the work on DE&I by creating a forum for 
regulators to share steps taken in support of such efforts and 
incorporating DE&I aspects into ongoing IAIS projects for 
corporate governance, culture, and conduct.
    Turning to our regulatory focus, we believe there should be 
equal access to insurance markets and products. This stance is 
not new. We must ensure that insurance companies are not 
unfairly discriminating at any stage of the insurance process, 
from underwriting to rate setting to claim handling. To that 
end, the NAIC's algorithmic bias project is addressing unfair 
algorithmic bias and how it emerges its right regulatory 
approaches to mitigation and detection.
    Recently, the project held a multi-day collaboration 
session for State insurance regulators featuring academics and 
experts on the topic. These issues were being discussed and 
looked at so that we can take measured and deliberative actions 
to avoid unintended consequences in the market. We are 
committed to continuing these important efforts, and we welcome 
your engagement. We recognize that the subcommittee's report 
indicates that insurance, like the financial services sector at 
large, has significant room for improvement to ensure a diverse 
workforce at all levels of the organization.
    Like you, we expect the statements of support and 
commitment made in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and 
other victims of racial violence to be met with sustained 
commitment to progress. The insurance regulatory committee is 
committed to being a part of that progress. I want to thank you 
for this opportunity to testify, and I will be pleased to 
answer any of your questions.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lindley-Myers can be found 
on page 38 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you, Ms. Lindley-Myers.
    Ms. Ross, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation of your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF KIMBERLY W. ROSS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL 
      RELATIONS, AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LIFE INSURERS (ACLI)

    Ms. Ross. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Beatty, Ranking Member 
Wagner, Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry, and members 
of the subcommittee. Thank you for allowing me to testify today 
on behalf of the American Counsel of Life Insurers (ACLI). It 
is certainly a 360 moment for me, and I am honored and humbled 
to be here.
    Our mission at ACLI is ensuring a lifetime of financial 
security and protection for all families. Pursuing diversity, 
equity, and inclusion is also a proud and interconnected part 
of the mission for ACLI and the industry. We know that 
empirical evidence shows that DEI is good for the bottom line, 
spurs greater innovation and decision-making, and is the right 
thing to do. Diverse firms outperform those that are not. We 
know this, and that is why DEI is an integrated part of how we 
ensure that every American has access to financial security for 
life.
    Turning to the committee's report completed for this 
hearing, it shows there has been some tremendous progress on 
the DEI front for our industry during the 5-year cover period. 
I will highlight just a few: 92 percent of covered firms had at 
least 50 percent of their workforce comprised of women; in 
2017, 100 percent of insurance companies leveraged diverse 
organization to increase recruitment of people of color and 
women, which includes recruitment at our nation's HBCUs and 
Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs).
    The percentage remains high in 2021 at 94 percent, despite 
the pandemic. The insurance industry's focus on leveraging 
diverse asset managers has increased. In 2021, 12 firms spent 
with women-owned asset managers, and 15 firms with minority-
owned asset managers, an increase of 33 and 15 percent, 
respectively, from 2017.
    ACLI believes life insurers are uniquely positioned to 
achieve DEI goals through the products we offer and the 
investments we make. Our products build financial certainty and 
can significantly enhance the transfer of intergenerational 
wealth. We are leading by example and serving as a catalyst and 
resource for our members to advance the renewable DEI goals and 
programs.
    I would like to share information on a few collective 
efforts underway by our industry to grow our DEI commitments, 
which are extracted from our strategic plan. In 2020, ACLI 
developed its board-led Economic Empowerment & Racial Equity 
Initiative, also known as EERE. EERE is a four-pillar 
initiative interwoven with ACLI's overarching goals to serve 
all Americans, and it is designed to transcend enduring 
boundaries to financial security.
    Chairwoman Beatty, life insurers know that having a diverse 
and inclusive workforce is a business imperative. In 2019, ACLI 
established a DEI forum led by chief diversity officers of our 
member companies and senior leaders within ACLI, including our 
CEO. For the past 3 years, our quarterly meetings culminated in 
an annual DEI conference with the APCIA and the Life Insurance 
Council of New York. The conference brings together hundreds of 
chief diversity officers, regulators, CEOs, and other leaders. 
Through the DEI forum in this conference, CEOs exchange ideas 
and innovations and set an industry-wide DEI focus.
    For instance this year, the DEI focus grappled a top-of-
line issue on retention of diverse talent in the face of the 
Great Resignation. And at the conference, we unveiled our 
latest impact-investing initiatives in affordable housing 
called 360 Community Capital. Many of our companies actively 
recruit, hire, and employ graduates of HBCUs and Hispanic-
Serving Institutions, participate in the HBCU challenge, and 
partner with many affiliated organizations to advance workforce 
and other impactful DEI goals in communities across the 
country.
    We also know that promoting diversity in corporate 
leadership is critical to growth. ACLI supports the Improving 
Corporate Governance Through Diversity Act, H.R. 1277, 
introduced by Congressman Meeks and Senator Menendez. Diversity 
is needed at all levels within a company, especially within the 
CEO and C-suite levels, where mission-critical decisions and 
resource allocations are determined.
    Chairwoman Beatty and Ranking Member Wagner, as laid out 
more fully in my written testimony, significant DEI work is 
underway at ACLI. And as your report shows by many of our 
member companies, we are committed to growth and know there is 
more work to be done. Our commitment is deep in tangible, 
girded by our 175 years of protecting families. We remain 
intentional to the DEI mission before us, and I thank you again 
for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to the 
discussion.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ross can be found on page 70 
of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you, Ms. Ross.
    Mr. Webel, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation on your testimony.

 STATEMENT OF BAIRD WEBEL, SPECIALIST IN FINANCIAL ECONOMICS, 
              CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (CRS)

    Mr. Webel. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Beatty, Ranking Member Wagner, and members of 
the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify 
today. My name is Baird Webel, and I am a Specialist in 
Financial Economics at the Congressional Research Service 
(CRS). And just one note of housekeeping, especially for people 
who might be watching who aren't familiar with CRS, we are an 
organization that provides objective, nonpartisan research and 
analysis to Congress. CRS as an organization takes no position 
on the desirability of any specific policy or policy outcome.
    The first part of my written testimony basically takes a 
look at some of the other government statistics in this area. 
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out a lot of more 
macro-level statistics, and I thought it might be interesting 
to take a look essentially at what some of the macro statistics 
say compared to what the committee's findings were. And in 
this, I would be remiss in not thanking my colleague with me 
today, economist Lida Weinstock from CRS, who shared valuable 
expertise in preparing this portion. And the second part is 
basically some observations on the legislation that was also 
put forth with regard to this hearing.
    Looking at the, sort of, overall statistics, BLS basically 
takes a macro-level approach so that this survey is essentially 
hoping to represent the entire employed population of the 
United States. And they have stuff going back a little bit 
further to 2011 or so, so a little bit longer look than what 
the committee had taken a look at.
    I think that when you look at the statistics, I guess the 
conclusion that you draw from the macro statistics is somewhat 
mixed. There are some areas in which the insurance industry has 
a higher percentage in some of the racial/ethnic categories and 
some in which they have a lower percentage. In particular, the 
macro statistics show that in Black and African-American 
populations, they are a little bit higher than the overall 
working population. And in Hispanic and Latino populations, 
they are somewhat lower. And particularly, in women, also much 
higher than the overall working population.
    But I think that it is important to keep in mind that these 
are macro statistics, and they do not drill down into the 
hierarchy of the insurance industry in the same way that the 
committee did with the surveys that you produced. And so I 
don't think--if there are numbers in the macro statistics that 
are somewhat contradictory or maybe--I would take that as an 
interesting piece of information. There may be some differences 
in measurement bias or something along that regard. But 
overall, I think the numbers are broadly consistent between the 
macro picture and what the committee found in the surveys that 
it took.
    Particularly with regard to insurance, I am actually more 
surprised at some of the differences between securities and 
banking worlds in the macro statistics. And a couple of words 
about some observations on the legislative side. As has been 
noted, the primary regulation of insurance is at the State 
level, and this does, I think, create some complications for 
Congress when it wishes to exercise authority in the realm of 
insurance.
    In looking at the pieces of legislation, both the drafts 
and what has been introduced, you can see that there are 
obviously differences in banking and in securities when you 
have direct regulators of those spheres under the Federal 
purview. So, it is basically a question of using the 
authorities of the Federal Insurance Office, or the Federal 
Reserve, which does have oversight of a very small number of 
insurance companies at this point, or the other tact that is 
sort of taken is addressing diversity and inclusion through the 
more general securities loss. And in terms of this regard in 
insurance, I would just also draw the Members' attention to the 
fact that much of the insurance industry is also in a mutual 
form, which means they are not publicly traded, they are not 
selling stock to the public, and that may, depending on how you 
sort or craft a legislation, reduce the impact that going the 
sort of SEC securities law route has on the insurance industry.
    With that, my time is about done, and I will be happy to 
answer any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Webel can be found on page 
80 of the appendix.]
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Webel.
    I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
    My first question is for you, Dr. Nunery. One area we 
investigated was CEO diversity at insurance companies, and the 
findings in that area were troubling, to say the least. On 
average, 24 out of 27 CEOs were White men, two were White 
women, and one was an Asian man. Not one woman of color was 
represented at this level.
    Can you describe the impact of this lack of diversity on 
the insurance industry or on consumers?
    Mr. Nunery. I think the issue is of concern and needs to be 
addressed. When you look at other studies, let's say Business 
Insurance Magazine, when they do their diversity study, 60-some 
percent of the respondents say that the CEO is most responsible 
and accountable for enacting DEI initiatives. The next-highest 
person is the chief human resources officer, at 15 percent. 
That is a 50-point gap between the two. If you don't have 
leadership that either represents or can speak to or is aware 
of the concerns and issues of diverse communities, it is likely 
that management inside those companies won't be held 
accountable.
    One of the challenges that the industry has is attracting 
talent. When I do informal surveys and ask how many people in a 
room of 100 knew about insurance as a career when they were in 
high school, maybe 2 hands out of that 100 go up. How about 
college, maybe 3 hands. And that is in diverse communities with 
diverse audiences. I guess the key here is making the industry 
more attractive, but also making sure that the retention 
efforts really are meaningful.
    In short, leadership does matter here, particularly when 
you are talking about establishing policies and making sure 
there is someone held accountable for reporting all the way 
through the organization. It is not something that can be fixed 
overnight. But it is--
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you very much for that. That is a 
good segue for my next question, which goes to you, Ms. 
Domingo. We find that most minority and women representation 
occurs at the lower level. As someone who is in leadership at 
your insurance company, Allstate, can you explain why that is 
and whether there is a system in place or a pipeline for women 
and minorities?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you, Chairwoman Beatty.
    I appreciate that question. It is a really important 
question, even for myself as a woman of color in leadership. We 
actually, at Allstate, have seen an increase in our promotion 
of women and people of color in our leadership over time. We 
have also seen an increase in our hiring of women and people of 
color in our management, actually over the availability of 
diverse candidates in the nation. We have set that goal, and we 
have actually exceeded that goal.
    To your question about systems that are in place to ensure 
diversity, like many of our peer companies, we have a lot of 
racial and ethnic diversity at some of our lower levels, our 
independent contributors and our hourlies, somewhere in the 
vicinity of about 57 percent. One of the things that we have in 
place is leadership programs. We have about 14 of them that 
target females and--
    Chairwoman Beatty. And just for the sake of time, where has 
that gotten us? We have all these, you are admitting, at the 
lower level. Is there a pipeline of how many people report to 
the president and CEO, have a seat at the table with the board 
of directors? Because we are also talking about equity, and the 
reports aren't showing that, so maybe I missed something.
    Ms. Domingo. No. That's okay. That is something that we are 
still working on. However--
    Chairwoman Beatty. But does it exist now?
    Ms. Domingo. It does exist right now. And our board, we are 
actually happy to present--you are the first to know--that our 
board diversity, which is about 60 percent right now, is going 
to increase in the next year. We are bringing on a Black 
female. And so--
    Chairwoman Beatty. You have how many now?
    Ms. Domingo. We have 3 of 10 who are female, 3 of 10 who 
are people of color, and we are bringing on another Black 
female at the end of--
    Chairwoman Beatty. Another--how many Black females do you 
have now?
    Ms. Domingo. All of the people of color are male.
    Chairwoman Beatty. So, there are no females?
    Ms. Domingo. No. We have females.
    Chairwoman Beatty. There are no Black females--
    Ms. Domingo. We are bringing one on--we are excited to 
bring one on at the end of this year.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Okay. Thank you.
    The next question is for Ms. Ross. Despite the fact that 
over 90 percent of ACLI member companies have committed to 
diversity, what do you think the insurance sector is lagging 
behind in?
    My time--I am going to give myself a few seconds for you to 
answer, and the rest you can put in writing.
    Ms. Ross. Chairwoman Beatty, thank you for your question. 
Did you want me to take time to answer it?
    Chairwoman Beatty. If you are more comfortable responding 
in writing--it is fine--the ranking member is letting me have a 
few extra seconds.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you. Certainly, there is room for growth. 
The DEI is an integral part of the growth for our industry. And 
we know that in terms of our total workforce numbers, there is 
an opportunity for growth, but we are proud of our increases in 
supplier diversity. We are proud of our numbers on our boards 
of directors, and again, the growth that we have had for women 
in our industry. We think it exceeds other parts of the 
financial services sector, and we are encouraged by that 
growth, while knowing that there is still room to grow.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Okay. Thank you very much. I now have 
the privilege to yield to the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, the gentlewoman from Missouri, Ms. Wagner, for 5 
minutes.
    Mrs. Wagner. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    As I said in the subcommittee many times before, I do 
support voluntary disclosures of diversity and inclusion data. 
Having frank and honest conversations about what challenges 
companies face in recruiting a diverse workforce can help us 
tackle those challenges, and examining diversity data is a big 
part of that conversation.
    However, I have long opposed mandatory disclosures that 
create an apple-to-oranges comparison between companies with 
different missions, goals, locations, and resources. I want to 
thank the companies that participated in this survey for 
telling their own stories in full context.
    Since each company self-determined their metrics, I don't 
think we can really use this data for straight comparison, but 
it is a starting point to look at what practices work for 
promoting diversity and what obstacles companies still face.
    With that in mind, I do want to explore one of the biggest 
challenges we saw in the data--and I know the chairwoman has 
spoken about it, I have, and the committee has as a whole--and 
that is the executive level diversity. The committee received 
data in response to the chairwoman's letter, which showed that 
the sample insurance companies employed, on average, 30.5 
percent people of color, and 54.6 percent women. Those numbers 
show real progress. However, at the executive level, the 
responding companies employed 16.2 percent executives of color, 
and 33.5 percent of female executives.
    Ms. Ross, do you think itis important to have a diverse 
board and C-suite in order to meaningfully shift the culture of 
a company?
    Ms. Ross. Thank you for your question, Ranking Member 
Wagner. Absolutely. That is why ACLI has worked with the NAIC 
on our insurance and race effort; that is why we have grown our 
numbers for board diversity for the nation's largest insurance 
companies at 28.5 percent for women, and 22 percent for people 
of color. And it is consistent with, or better than the 
performance of some of the other sectors of the financial 
services industry. As far as CEO levels, we know that those 
advancements are usually made from our C-suite, and that is why 
we are focused on our C-suite efforts to diversify
    And with that growth in our board diversity, we look to 
having more diverse levels at our CEO. But what I do want to 
also highlight is that although there was not diversity in the 
CEO level for the companies that were surveyed, there are other 
companies among our 280 member companies that do have a woman 
or--
    Mrs. Wagner. I think all participated in the survey 
portion. We are sorry that more didn't show up for hearing, but 
I appreciate your input. Let me move on.
    Lack of diversity is not always an easy problem to solve 
because the root causes are sometimes complex. I think one way 
we can continue to progress in this area is to have a candid 
dialogue about what is working and what is not working. We can 
learn from each other and not be shamed for the things we are 
trying but may not yet be yielding results.
    Ms. Domingo, Ms. Ross, what are the challenges that you are 
facing? What are you struggling with? Are there additional 
factors we can consider to increase the recruitment apparatus 
in the talent pool?
    Ms. Domingo?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you so much for that question, 
Congresswoman Wagner.
    I agree entirely that audits like this are actually some of 
the reason that we think it is important to examine and look at 
yourself in the mirror. Some of the things at Allstate that we 
are handling is ensuring that our managers have the education 
and the scripting to actually talk about this. It is one thing 
for me and for the leadership to be able to talk about this, 
but for our managers to also give this information and talk 
about this in a fluid way with their employees, to talk about 
equity in the hiring and promotion processes, is also important 
for us.
    Mrs. Wagner. Thank you very much. I am out of time. I 
appreciate your efforts and your being here today.
    And I yield back to the Chair.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    I now recognize the Chair of the Full Committee, the 
gentlewoman from California, Chairwoman Waters, for 5 minutes.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Beatty, 
for this hearing. This is so important, and the work that has 
been done that you and I basically initiated has revealed an 
awful lot about insurance companies. Let me just say this: I 
know that some of the insurance companies like Allstate are 
very familiar in our communities, and we see people of color at 
various events representing Allstate, et cetera, et cetera. I 
don't want to focus on employment. I want to focus on 
ownership.
    And I am looking at supplier diversity. The average amount 
of money spent with diverse suppliers at surveyed insurance 
companies was 2.7 percent with minority-owned suppliers, 2.4 
percent with women-owned suppliers, and 1.2 percent with 
minority- and women-owned suppliers, as a percent of overall 
procurement spent.
    Chairwoman Beatty took up the oversight of something that 
we created some time ago called the Offices of Minority and 
Women Inclusion (OMWIs). We learned a lot about those who were 
in positions of leadership as it related to diversity and 
inclusion and what they seemingly did or were supposed to do in 
order to create opportunity.
    One of the things we discovered was that not many of them 
knew much about how to create ownership with contractors. I am 
about building wealth with ownership. For example, what is the 
percentage of solo or with the use of suppliers? I am 
interested in understanding that. And I am wondering, for those 
of you who have positions where you are in charge of diversity 
and all of that, do you talk about ownership? Do you talk about 
using more suppliers? Do you talk about some old models that I 
think we used to see where there were agents, I think, that had 
companies and businesses that they owned, and they literally 
did business with several insurance companies, and they wrote 
the insurance for these--for the community.
    What do you do in terms of understanding that we are not 
only interested in employment--yes, we want upward mobility, we 
want upper management--that there is a lack of this certainly. 
It is still in the boardroom, but what do you do in 
relationship to Black businesses, Latino businesses, women-
owned businesses, to include them in their businesses because 
they are suppliers, they are business people who perhaps could 
be agents if you still use them that way?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you, Chairwoman Waters. That is a great 
question, and I am sure you saw my head nodding.
    We have a goal at Allstate of $470 million spent with our 
diverse suppliers by 2025. And at this point, towards that 
goal, we have already achieved half of that goal. To your 
point, one of the things that Allstate does is we provide each 
minority supplier with a peer mentor. So, we supply them with 
another vendor who is a majority vendor or another minority 
vendor, and we provide peer mentorship. Then, we also provide 
sponsorship and mentorship from the Allstate side to ensure--as 
you know, attention, equitable attention, specific attention to 
their success, coaching on their contracts--
    Chairwoman Waters. Let me reclaim my time here for a 
minute.
    If I looked at your database for all of your suppliers, 
would I see a comprehensive database where no matter what the 
supply needs were, you had someplace to go and to reach out and 
do business with suppliers? Or do you need to learn how do this 
better?
    Ms. Domingo. I would say a little bit of both. We do have a 
warehouse of information where our suppliers can go and use our 
procurement.
    Chairwoman Waters. Why is the percentage so low?
    Ms. Domingo. The percentage of our spend?
    Chairwoman Waters. The amount that you spend on minority 
and women suppliers. Why is it so low?
    Ms. Domingo. We are increasing that with mentorship and 
sponsorship as we speak. And again, we are happy to report that 
we have half of our supplier spend already reached. And three 
of our minority suppliers we recently sold to a majority 
supplier at the amount of about $100 million, and so we are 
also--
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. My time is up, and 
I have to yield back, but your response is not good. You do 
very little, and you have to do better. All of the insurance 
companies have to do better. We want ownership. We have to 
close the wealth gap. Thank you very much.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Rose, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairwoman Beatty, and thank you, 
Ranking Member Wagner, for holding this subcommittee hearing 
today. And also, thank you to our witnesses for testifying 
today and making your time available for us.
    I would like to start off by saying that I was quite 
disappointed when I saw the hearing schedule for this month. As 
members of the Financial Services Committee, one of our primary 
responsibilities is conducting oversight of the Executive 
Branch. The last time we even held a hearing with a Biden 
Administration official was on July 20th, and we will have gone 
nearly 4 months without holding a hearing with any Biden 
Administration officials because of the October recess.
    It is not right for the Democratic majority to shield the 
Administration from oversight just because there is an election 
in November. The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing last 
week with SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Why didn't we hold a full 
hearing with Chair Gensler? While I appreciate our witnesses 
for being here, we really should have Biden Administration 
officials here instead.
    Now, as time is limited, I will dive right into my 
questions. Equity is being embraced wholesale by schools, 
corporate America, and the Biden Administration. It has 
infiltrated hiring, curriculum, admissions, trainings, and 
more. But equity is not the same thing as equality, and 
delivers very different results. Rather than providing all 
individuals with equal opportunities to succeed, equity 
segregates individuals by race and other immutable 
characteristics. It calls for institutions to treat people 
unequally in order to achieve equal outcomes. Equity recklessly 
embraces legally-prohibited classifications as a way to 
eliminate perceived differences in outcome, in violation, I 
believe, of equal protection and Federal law.
    Ms. Domingo, do you believe that it is fair to use equity 
as an excuse to treat people unequally in order to achieve a 
desired outcome?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
    Allstate believes that equity is the practice of ensuring 
that all people can be successful, all people can receive the 
tools to be accepted, respected, dignified, and a part of the 
community. We also see equity as a way to give everybody a fair 
shot, regardless of diversity demographics.
    At Allstate, we ensure fair practices in our hiring and in 
our promotion. We do see equity as a way to be more inclusive 
and have an environment that is even more inclusive. We live 
our commitment to match the communities in which we live, work, 
and serve, and equity is one of the ways that we desire to 
achieve that goal.
    Mr. Rose. I guess as I hear your answer, what I am hearing 
you describe is the notion that I think we have all long viewed 
as desirable, but that is equality, where we strive to give 
people equal opportunities, and encourage environments where 
people can succeed based on their capabilities and abilities 
and on the content of their character, as Dr. King said.
    What I see in equity is entirely different. I see as I 
study this question and look at the description of how it is 
being implemented across our society, I see just what I would 
view, and I was just reading an article earlier today from Dr. 
Ben Carson on what is the new form of racism. So, I am very 
concerned about this drift from the use of the word, 
``equality,'' and underlying meanings, and the substitution of 
the word, ``equity,'' and the underlying meanings that go with 
it.
    But I want to go ahead and give a couple of other folks a 
chance to answer that same question. Do you believe it is fair 
to use equity as an excuse to treat people unequally in order 
to achieve a desired outcome, Commissioner Lindley-Myers?
    Ms. Lindley-Myers. Thank you for the question. I think that 
when you look at equity and you are trying to determine whether 
or not there is equal treatment, I believe it is one and the 
same, in that you provide the opportunities for people to 
either succeed or fail, and it is on that individual to either 
succeed or fail. And I think not allowing everyone that 
opportunity then leads to inequity and not equal treatment. 
That would be my answer to you, Congressman Rose.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you. I think we largely agree that equality 
is a value which we should achieve and strive for, but I see I 
am out of time, so I yield back, Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, who is also 
the Chair of our Task Force on Financial Technology, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I really appreciate 
you holding this hearing, and I appreciate the work of the Full 
Committee Chair, Chairwoman Waters, on this issue as well.
    And I think that if I could clarify the dilemma described 
by my colleague, Mr. Rose, here is the deal: In the financial 
services sector, we see very little presence in a meaningful 
way of people of color, and that has developed over time. And 
when you look at insurance company board rooms, and financial 
services companies, and banks, you see very little opportunity 
and participation by people of color. It is all White. All of 
these boards are White. Let me just get to the point.
    And so what this committee is struggling with is to 
identify those barriers that heretofore have been exceedingly 
efficient in preventing Black people, people of color, from 
being part of that whole industry. That is a problem. We have a 
problem. And we need to figure out a way that--we need to 
fulfill the promise of America, and there is a real problem in 
financial services, a really difficult problem.
    And I know, just recently, that people are waking up to 
that dilemma, and there are companies that are earnestly and 
honestly and genuinely recognizing the failure of the industry 
to be inclusive in the past. And they are trying mightily, some 
of them, to fix that.
    Now, what I would like to do is to ask our witnesses, look, 
if you have struggled--if Allstate has struggled with this, and 
other companies are struggling with this, what do you see as 
the principal barriers to--I heard some of the numbers, and it 
seems like women of color, there is a real--for some reason, 
there is a real gap there.
    And look, I grew up with five sisters. Fortunately, they 
all work in a union environment, so they get the same pay as 
the guys do, same benefits, same pensions, but this is a 
different world. And I want to know from our witnesses, what 
are you seeing the barriers are, and how do we knock down those 
barriers?
    Is it childcare? I know a lot of women of color also have 
responsibility not only for childcare, but also eldercare. Is 
there a way to knock down those barriers on the part of the 
company by providing opportunity and providing some support to 
get those women into the workplace at high levels? Are there 
ways that we can help lift them up, or give them a hand? To any 
of the witnesses, I would be happy to hear your response.
    Mr. Nunery. Congressman, this is Leroy Nunery. Thanks for 
that. I found the last commentary very interesting, talking 
about equity and conflating it with equality, and here is why: 
When you look at the industry, and I have done research for 
years now, the way people end up getting hired into the 
industry isn't from school, it isn't from an ad, it isn't from 
a recruiter; it is because of a personal connection or friend, 
and that goes for White, Black, or anybody else. The industry 
itself has a brand awareness issue. If you want to not only 
increase the amount of talent but also, as Chairwoman Waters 
aptly stated, the amount of ownership, you have to have 
sponsorship, you have to have somebody inside, but also 
outside, advocating for that cause.
    Childcare and eldercare particularly get in the way of 
female insurance executives. If you look at the Million Women 
Mentors' Women in Insurance Initiative, or the Association of 
Professional Insurance Women, you will see that is one of the 
factors, but also, it is a matter of having somebody inside who 
promotes your cause and helps you to advocate.
    If we really want to address some of the longstanding 
issues in terms of pricing and redlining and all of that, you 
have to have people realizing that this product is something 
that everyone uses, but it is not fairly distributed and it is 
not necessarily priced appropriately.
    I am just stating that as someone who has been studying 
this issue for a while. I think you have hit on something, but 
it also applies to anybody of any ilk and any background.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Nunery.
    Madam Chairwoman, my time has expired, so I yield back. 
Thank you. Thanks for having this hearing.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Timmons, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here 
today.
    Ms. Domingo, I will start with you, please. What would you 
say that you and your company are most proud of in the audit 
results, and where would you say the most work remains to 
further diversify your workforce?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you for your question, Mr. Timmons. I 
would say that for Allstate, we are probably most proud of 
our--in 2020 we created a $1.2-billion bond sale where we 
worked with minority-owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned 
business enterprises and supported the largest bond sale, 
independent bond sale at that time, as part of our bold action, 
our commitment to making real change and influencing others to 
make real change, so we are very proud of that.
    And then to your other question, as my colleague mentioned 
before, we are creating sponsorship and mentorship programs to 
ensure that our talent, our diverse talent at all levels of the 
organization are seen as proteges. Sponsorship programs not 
only support the employee who is being mentored or being 
sponsored, but also support the sponsor to be more engaged and 
accountable for moving diversity numbers.
    Mr. Timmons. Sure, thank you.
    I serve in the Air Force, and the military has been 
grappling with diversity and inclusion and trying to make the 
military and every group of decision-makers at every level 
reflect the gender and racial diversity of the country. I think 
that is a very good objective. I think everybody can agree to 
that.
    The question becomes, how do we get from where we are now, 
which is not reflective of the makeup of our society, and where 
we want to be, without disadvantaging people who have also had 
challenging socioeconomic backgrounds that are not diverse. It 
becomes an issue, particularly in the military, because we 
track everything. And when there are promotion opportunities, 
it often leaves people feeling like they have been left out 
because they are not diverse, either in race or in gender.
    Is this a challenge in your business environment? And I am 
also going to open it up to the rest of the witnesses. It is 
just something that we have been working on in the military, 
and it is a lingering issue.
    Ms. Domingo, I will start with you. Is that something that 
you all deal with on a regular basis, the conversation of merit 
versus diversity and inclusion?
    Ms. Domingo. It is. It is a real conversation at Allstate, 
and it is a critical conversation. One of the things that we 
are doing is ensuring that we actually talk about it, so 
talking with our managers, talking with our hiring managers, 
particularly making sure that we have education about this.
    I think one of the reasons why some of that continued 
perception is ongoing is because some of these conversations 
are actually not happening where some of the decisions are 
taking place. That is one of the things. So I would say, yes, 
this is ongoing for us, and having open and clear dialogue and 
expectations is something that we are trying to do at Allstate.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you.
    Dr. Nunery, do you have any thoughts?
    Mr. Nunery. Congressman, you have hit on something. I am 
doing a separate study, and interestingly, 90-some percent of 
the folks that we are surveying have no military experience. A 
significant number of them are not of any type of diversity in 
terms of their gender designation. So, the industry itself has 
an issue with recruiting, attracting, and being present with 
those communities.
    I think there is actually another opportunity going 
downstream into community colleges, middle schools, and high 
schools. A lot of the jobs inside, at least certain parts of 
the insurance world, don't require a college degree. And so, I 
think there is an opportunity here to say, wherever you are, 
given the pervasiveness and the need for insurance and people 
who really understand risk management, understand how insurance 
works to educate more and bring more people on board, no matter 
where you live, no matter how much education you have attained. 
I am glad you raised that point, because it is something that I 
am finding through my own independent research.
    Mr. Timmons. Sure. Thank you.
    I think we can all agree that our objective for the 
military and for businesses is that our society is well-
reflected in those institutions. We just have to make sure that 
we are being intentional about it, because we don't want to 
take opportunities away from anyone. We want to give 
opportunities to everybody.
    And with that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And thank you to all of our witnesses for testifying today.
    And I would like to extend a special welcome to Dr. Nunery. 
Dr. Nunery, if I am correct, you are my constituent in the 
proud Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania.
    Mr. Nunery. Cresheim Valley Road, Glenside, Pennsylvania 
19038.
    Ms. Dean. Glenside, a part of the civilized world. That is 
even better. That is terrific.
    We have talked about this before, but I want to lay the 
predicate that we know that diversity and inclusion across all 
industries improves the bottom line. It is not just the right 
thing to do, but it improves the bottom line.
    Dr. Nunery, from your work, your research, can you talk 
about how increasing diversity improves profitability?
    Mr. Nunery. The opportunity to not only bring diverse 
voices into the room and also think about things differently 
comes with the individuals who were there. One of the reasons I 
joined Acrisure's Evolution Advisors is because we are 
investing in minority-owned agencies and brokers, similar to 
what Chairwoman Waters talked about being able to diversify 
distribution, but also tap into markets and bring products to 
the markets that often are evading them.
    I think the idea of not only more creativity, greater 
revenue, but more sustainability, are the outcomes of having 
diversity. It is not one thing or the other; it is all of 
those.
    Ms. Dean. And does it also help--even though this isn't the 
focus of this hearing, does it also help attract a more diverse 
customer base, so you bring more people into the products that 
are available?
    Mr. Nunery. Congresswoman, it has to go beyond just the 
advertising, what people see on their television screen. It is 
also about education, financial literacy. How many people 
really understand what they read when they get their insurance 
policy? Imagine if what we did was bring all of that to the 
table so that folks were better educated but also more 
knowledgeable about what they were procuring. So, yes, I think 
it actually has more downstream effect. It could affect the 
economy in a very positive way at a very low cost.
    Ms. Dean. Terrific. Thank you.
    One issue that we highlighted in this committee is the 
importance of data and transparency for understanding where we 
stand in the state of diversity and inclusion in your industry 
for today's focus.
    Ms. Domingo, I am impressed with the level of transparency 
shown by Allstate through your strategy. Can you talk about the 
importance of transparency for holding companies accountable in 
this area? And then, I will have a follow-up to that.
    Ms. Domingo. Yes, one of the things actually prior to my 
joining Allstate is we did not have talent scorecards or 
consistent diversity spend scorecards that were being shared 
with our leadership, again, on a consistent basis. We have 
incepted that now on a monthly basis. All of the leadership see 
their talent scorecard, their diversity numbers, as well as 
their spend. We also coach on, a weekly basis, actually moving 
those numbers, so the level of transparency is very high. And 
we are incepting other databases that are accessible to 
leadership from director and above to actually access their 
data at any point in time so that they can really use that 
information in real time and change behavior.
    Ms. Dean. Are people paying attention to the data that you 
are sharing?
    Ms. Domingo. They are, yes.
    Ms. Dean. And yet, I want to contrast something. The report 
by the committee found that there has been little progress made 
in the insurance industry as a whole over the last 5 years, if 
you take a look at some of the very top lines from this report. 
And we have been talking about this for more than 5 years, and 
this committee, under this leadership, has just been doing 
extraordinary work, with very little movement.
    We are all talking about it. We all think it is the right 
way to go. What progress has Allstate made--and you did lift 
the bond, so beyond that, what progress have you made? Where do 
you see you have absolute barriers? Where are you not being 
successful?
    Ms. Domingo. Right now, we are proud that 71 percent of our 
directors and above identify as female or people of color. 
Where we see a lot of opportunity is what we call the frozen 
middle, so our middle management. This is where our women and 
people-of-color numbers are below where we want them to be. We 
have a lot of diversity on either side of the spectrum.
    What we are really doing is making sure that we pay 
attention to our pipelining, we pay attention to more of our 
retention efforts, working more and synthesizing a lot of our 
systems. A lot of our systems are kind of siloed at this point 
around diversity. So, a lot of people are doing a lot of great 
things, but they are not optimized to really focus on some of 
our goals like this, so that is what we are really going to be 
focusing on.
    Ms. Dean. Thank you to all our witnesses.
    Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    The gentleman from Ohio, my colleague and friend, Mr. 
Gonzalez, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. Thank you, Chairwoman Beatty, for 
holding this hearing, and thank you for our witnesses.
    Dr. Nunery, I want to start with you. You talked about 
something that I think is really hard to solve. And by way of 
my own background--I have had sort of a weird background. I am 
Hispanic--Gonzalez--and I played professional football for a 
couple of years, went to business school, and have a bunch of 
friends in private equity, hedge funds, all of that, and in the 
insurance industries. And so, I have seen these different 
networks.
    And you mentioned how in many instances, you need a 
personal contact or a friend. You need real sponsorship, 
mentorship. It almost has to come from inside the community to 
pull people into these industries. I couldn't agree more. And 
when I think of my experiences in those different networks, it 
is amazing how they feed off one another and they push people 
into certain paths, right?
    The question is, how do we solve this issue? What is the 
best way to make sure that we are providing the mentorship, the 
sponsorship necessary to pull diverse communities into these 
industries, into the insurance industry, and financial services 
generally? What have the best strategies been that you have 
seen?
    Mr. Nunery. Speaking not only as someone who has consulted 
the industry, but I started my career out after business school 
as a banker. And nobody in my family was a banker. In fact, my 
father thought I was going to be a teller.
    The fact is that you need individuals who are currently 
involved in the business, maybe even incentivized to go out and 
promote the opportunities within the industry, and there are 
several, especially as insurance becomes more digitally 
transformed. As we move into different fields, where technology 
is going to be a driver, you don't have to have an insurance 
background or any type of designation, quite frankly, to 
succeed.
    I think some of it is building awareness, promoting it as 
an opportunity that can be lucrative, by the way, but also 
understanding that insurance as a product and a historical lift 
for the communities of color, going back into the early 1700s, 
as a matter of fact, with mutual benefit societies, has always 
been there, but it is thought of as an afterthought. And I 
think if we can move it forward as an opportunity for growth 
and for economic development, we have a better shot at 
impelling more people to check it out.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. No, I agree, and I think it is 
frankly a call to those who are diverse in positions of 
leadership to really take it upon themselves to exert even more 
leadership and pull more people along. When I think of my own 
life, the people who have really helped accelerate my career, 
frankly, a lot of it is my Cuban friends and family who--we 
kind of look after our own in different ways, and, boy, am I 
grateful for that, and I plan to pay it forward in my own ways.
    Ms. Domingo, I have a specific question for you. You talked 
about the frozen middle, and you talked about how at the intro 
level, you get a lot of diverse candidates, at the upper 
management you get them, and then this frozen middle. When you 
talk about the candidates in upper management, do you have a 
sense of what percentage of them were internally promoted 
versus externally recruited? Is it that people are hitting the 
frozen middle and dropping out, and then you are recruiting 
more people in, or is it something else? Does that make sense 
as a question?
    Ms. Domingo. The question does make sense. I don't know, 
Mr. Gonzalez, if I have that information readily available. I 
can certainly get that and turn it in for the record.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. Yes, I just think it would be 
interesting, because I think it could highlight maybe where the 
fallouts are.
    And in staying with you, Ms. Domingo, in your testimony you 
said Allstate has launched recruiting strategies with twelve 
HBCUs and twelve Hispanic-Serving Institutions. I think it is a 
great idea. While it is in its early stages, how has this 
partnership played out so far, as sort of a status update?
    Ms. Domingo. Sure. You are right, this is really in the 
infancy. We actually relaunched some of these partnerships. As 
I mentioned earlier, when I joined Allstate, we had a lot of 
great things that were going on, but they were kind of all over 
the place. So, inventorizing them in my first year was one of 
the things, and then optimizing what it is that we are doing.
    Currently, we are looking at what undergraduate and 
graduate programs the HBCUs offer, and tying them with where 
some of our deficit areas are, like tech or data, for example. 
One of the things that we are really proud of is we just 
partnered with William Blair, and we have an asset management 
diversity program where we are taking eight graduates from 
HBCUs and circulating them throughout Allstate with the intent 
of bringing them on after they intern with us.
    Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio. That is great. I spent time in 
technology as well, and this was a strategy we used to get more 
diverse candidates in our pipeline. It worked incredibly well, 
and so I commend you for it.
    And with that, I yield back.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. 
Garcia, who is also the Vice Chair of this subcommittee, for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank 
you for bringing this very important topic to the table. After 
being on this committee now for almost 2 terms, I thought that 
we had a lot of work to do in the financial services, the 
banking industry, but after I read your report--and thank you 
for that work together with Chairwoman Waters, of course--I 
just thought, I didn't know it could be worse, and I think it 
is.
    And I think enough people have probably already focused on 
the employment numbers that I just want to kind of change the 
tone a little bit, and first, just say that you all have a lot 
of work to do. And I hope that we can get together today to 
look at some concrete actionable changes, because I think that 
is what it is going to take, not just coming from us but from 
you, with a commitment to really do it.
    I want to start by highlighting the lack of Latino 
leadership in the insurance industry. As we have seen laid out 
in the report, Latinos make up 8.8 percent of the insurance 
workforce, which is less than 10 percent. That, frankly, is 
pathetic. But alarmingly, Latinos represent 3.1 percent of 
executive leaders among the insurance companies surveyed, and 
the job category in which Latinos are most highly represented 
is administrative support. Again, much work needs to be done.
    There should be no reason that Latinos are not better-
represented across the ranks. Then, I looked at the investment 
of assets, and when we looked at those, the numbers just get 
even worse. And I want to focus on investments, because as 
Chairwoman Waters said, it is all about wealth building. It is 
about ownership. It is about making sure that there is 
meaningful inclusion and meaningful diversity.
    So, Ms. Domingo, I wanted to ask you first, since it looks 
like Allstate, from what I can tell, is probably doing more 
than others, although you, too, have a lot of work to do. What 
commitment do you have in making sure your investment bankers 
and your investors and investor relations and all of the asset 
management for Allstate that you do includes minorities and 
women and the full spectrum?
    Ms. Domingo. Absolutely. Thank you for that question, Ms. 
Garcia. You actually hit on one of the things that Allstate 
identified just this year. A lot of our focus, as you probably 
have read, is primarily with our Black and African-American 
employees in our leadership, as well as our female leadership.
    Once we took a better look at our data, we realized that 
you are right, we don't have kind of equitable practices or 
equitable numbers around our Hispanic leaders and our Hispanic 
employees, and so, we actually have now a focus on.
    Our relationship with our investors, our board of 
directors, as well as the CEO, Tom Wilson, is pretty critical. 
My supervisor is the chief human resources officer (CHRO). I 
have regular and ad hoc conversations with the board, the 
investors, and the CEO specifically about these topics and 
ensure that we have diverse candidate slates, diversity of 
conversations--
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Let's get to the investments. Do you 
do business with asset managers from minority- and women-owned 
businesses?
    Ms. Domingo. Yes, we do.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. At what level?
    Ms. Domingo. I don't have that information readily 
available. I can get that for you after this and provide it for 
the record.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Okay. And the number that you cited, 
$470 million by 2030, that would be $470 million of what? What 
was the total number? What percent of the total number does 
$470 million represent?
    Ms. Domingo. I don't have that information readily 
available. I will have to provide that for the record.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. You don't have that either? Okay.
    Ms. Ross, what other actions, concrete actions do you think 
we can be taking to improve the commitment and the full, 
meaningful participation of some of the insurance companies in 
providing opportunities for asset managers, investment bankers, 
et cetera?
    Ms. Ross. Thank you for your question. There are efforts 
that we can take. Some of it includes building a pipeline of 
diversity, to be quite frank. We know that only 2 percent of 
certified actuaries are Hispanic, and we are working with a 
number of HBCUs and MSIs to build capacity to expand their 
curriculum so that they can add actuarial science and risk 
management to their curriculum. That is, many of our companies 
also partner with HBCUs and MSIs for recruitment and retention, 
and, again, that is how we intend to grow our Hispanic numbers 
and increase our investments with Hispanic asset managers.
    Ms. Garcia of Texas. Okay. Thank you.
    Madam Chairwoman, I have run out of time. Thank you.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    The gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. Tlaib, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Beatty, for 
highlighting the importance of diversity and inclusion in the 
insurance companies across our nation. I know in Michigan, we 
have seen firsthand how a lack of diversity and inclusion 
commitment in leadership has directly impacted the rates that 
our residents pay, especially for auto insurance.
    According to the Detroit Free Press, Madam Chairwoman, 
Michigan drivers pay some of the highest auto insurance rates 
in the nation, with little to no pricing transparency. 
Insurance companies use confidential pricing models to set 
rates based on factors that have nothing to do with a person's 
driving history.
    Nearly all States have statutes in place right now that 
prohibit rates that are unfairly discriminatory, but it is 
unclear the extent to which there is any consistency across 
States in terms of determining what counts as unfairly 
discriminatory and what stances are used by State regulators to 
make such determinations.
    I do want to ask you, Mr. Webel, what can you tell us about 
the level of consistency across States in interpreting and 
enforcing State anti-discrimination laws?
    Mr. Webel. I am not aware of any actual sort of good way to 
make the comparisons. What I would say, especially on the 
question of unfair discrimination, is I think it is a term of 
art in the insurance realm that historically has not been used 
the way, sort of, normal people would think of it in a sense 
that the classical definition of unfair discrimination is 
essentially discrimination on something that doesn't 
essentially comport with the rate that is charged.
    So if you are using a factor for one person and for 
another, even if the factor treats or seems to someone from the 
outside to be something that would be discriminatory, if you 
can draw a relationship between that factor and the rate under 
the classical definition of unfair discrimination, you can 
still use that. The term, ``discrimination,'' means something 
different in a classical sense. I think in the last few years, 
they have changed that to now be, okay, we want to broaden that 
term to include factors, some of which you were talking about, 
that we just don't think should be used in insurance. I think 
that is a process which is ongoing in insurance regulation, and 
it is not consistent.
    Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. I will ask you something about 
disparate impact in a minute, but I know that 48 States require 
auto insurance to drive a car, including Michigan. And in 
Detroit, driving without auto insurance is a misdemeanor. The 
pricing functions is really a tax on America's low-income 
drivers, and especially Black and Brown drivers who pay 
significantly higher insurance rates, and subsidize affluent 
drivers who continue to have savings, while they continue to 
get rate increases.
    Ms. Domingo, I want to thank you so much for appearing 
before our committee today. And one of the things I want to ask 
you is, does Allstate use any of the following criterias when 
determining rates for auto insurance? If so, please explain why 
these factors are relevant to driving history. I know my 
residents get asked about their education level, occupation, 
employment status, homeownership status, credit score, gender, 
and ZIP Code and census tract, including whether or not they 
are married. What does that have to do with whether or not 
somebody is a safe driver?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you for the question. It is a very 
important topic. I can't speak with authority on that topic, 
but I would be happy to connect you with the offices at 
Allstate that can speak to that after this hearing.
    Ms. Tlaib. It is important. And, Ms. Domingo, I will share 
with you--after the hearing, I will make sure my team touches 
base with you. But the University of Michigan did a study where 
it showed that somebody with a higher credit score but with a 
DUI, driving under the influence, was paying 3 times less than 
the person with the lower credit score but no DUI violation. 
And so, there is some discrepancy and you can imagine the 
background of those individuals.
    Going back to you, Mr. Webel, the disparate impact 
standards are sometimes used to assess discrimination in the 
context of key Federal civil rights laws. Have States utilized 
disparate impact standards in assessing discrimination in auto 
insurance, home mortgage, and business pricing?
    Mr. Webel. I am not aware of States that are using that. I 
don't know, perhaps the commissioner from Missouri might know 
the answer to the question, but I am not aware of any States 
that are using disparate impact in insurance.
    Ms. Tlaib. I think it is just really important and 
critically important, because as we are talking about diversity 
and inclusion, I think the end result--and I can't speak for 
the Chair and many on our committee--but the end result is 
making sure that people are not being discriminated against 
within these industries. And when I read statements like 
research from the Consumer Federation of America, which finds 
that Black drivers paid much more than White drivers even 
though--oh, sorry, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.
    Chairwoman Beatty. I will let you finish the sentence, but 
your time is up.
    Ms. Tlaib. I just think it is just really important to know 
that, again, many of my Black neighbors are paying a higher 
rate of auto insurance, home mortgage, and so forth because 
they are using non-driving factors, and also these proxies to 
discriminate within these industries, and that is why I think 
it is important to talk about diversity and inclusion within 
these industries.
    Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you.
    The gentlewoman from Georgia, Ms. Williams, who is also the 
Vice Chair of our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 
is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 
Today, we are hearing loud and clear that we have work to do to 
make sure that the insurance industry reflects the diversity of 
our country. As the Member of Congress representing Atlanta, 
where we unfortunately lead the nation in the racial wealth 
gap, and as a Black working mom, I know that starts with 
removing barriers to advancement for people who look like me.
    This year, I passed the Care is an Economic Development 
Strategy (CEDS) Act to ensure that childcare is used as a 
strategy for regional economic development. When we have 
adequate childcare, we break down barriers for women and people 
of color to advance into executive-level positions.
    Ms. Domingo, how can the insurance industry be part of 
community-level efforts to increase access to care-based 
services, and what impact do you see these community-level 
efforts having on increasing workforce diversity and inclusion?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you, Ms. Williams. It is absolutely 
critical for companies like Allstate to have strong 
relationships with community organizations like the one that 
you are talking about, but I think the one thing that they need 
to do as well, insurance companies like Allstate--we also 
ensure that our benefits are best-in-class so that our 
paternity and maternity benefits are also matching that of 
best-in-class or world-class organizations, and then coincide 
with what community services are able to provide.
    One of the things as well is that a very large percentage 
of our population is now hybrid, or primarily working from 
home, which for our working mom and working dad populations, 
similar to myself, makes it much more accessible to do a great 
job at Allstate and continue to persevere at home.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you. And we know that we 
also have a great deal of work to do to ensure that LGBTQ+ 
individuals have equitable opportunities throughout the 
financial services industry. I have introduced the Promoting 
Responsive Inclusion & Diverse Engagement (PRIDE) Act, which 
requires Federal banking and finance agencies to expand the 
mission of their Offices of Women and Minority Inclusion to 
also support the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals.
    Ms. Domingo, how would passing this bill ensure Federal 
agencies are better positioned to collect diversity data for 
LGBTQ+ individuals and take action to support the inclusion of 
these individuals in the workforce?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you for the question, Ms. Williams. 
While I can't speak to that bill particularly, what I can say 
is that this would actually align with the things that Allstate 
is actually around our LGBTQ+ population and looking at that 
data. We are in the process of asking more clarifying questions 
around sexual orientation and gender identity data, tracking 
this, reporting this, and using this as behavior changes for 
anti-organization and moving that work forward. I can only 
imagine that the work that you are doing would align with our 
current practices.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you. And if we hope to not 
only increase diversity in the financial services sector, but 
also empower diverse individuals to own successful businesses 
and build wealth so that we can continue to close that racial 
wealth gap, we have to be sure that insurance companies use 
diverse suppliers.
    So, Ms. Domingo, back to you again, what efforts have been 
successful at increasing contracting with minority- or women-
owned business enterprises, and what recommendations do you 
have for insurance companies to increase their partnerships 
with diverse suppliers?
    Ms. Domingo. Thank you again for the question, Ms. 
Williams. Again, as we mentioned earlier, and I definitely 
would underline what you are saying is that spend with diverse 
suppliers is not just about spending the money; it is actually 
about investing in their work and investing in their 
businesses.
    One of the best practices that we do with our procurement 
team is ensuring that each of our diverse suppliers has a 
mentor on the inside as well as suppliers on the outside who 
are working with them, ensuring that their practices are strong 
and improved. We also have equitable practices that we pull 
through with our procurement teams, ensuring that we just don't 
have minority suppliers that are kind of fending for 
themselves.
    But a lot of it, quite frankly, is actually a paradigm 
shift to see that this isn't just, again, spending for diverse 
suppliers but actually, as you mentioned, shifting the wealth 
gap of our nation, which is a higher call.
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. Thank you, Ms. Domingo.
    I work on this committee every day to make sure that I am 
representing the people who sent me here to serve, those people 
in Georgia's Fifth Congressional District. And unfortunately, 
Atlanta leads the nation in the racial wealth gap, so we all 
have work to do and an obligation to make sure we are 
addressing that. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for this hearing, 
as we continue to do the work to address the racial wealth gap 
in this country.
    Chairwoman Beatty. Thank you--
    Ms. Williams of Georgia. And I yield back.
    Chairwoman Beatty. --Congresswoman Williams. Thank you so 
much.
    I would like to now thank the witnesses for their testimony 
today. However, I would like to remind you and all those 
listening about our disappointment that the insurance 
companies' presidents and CEOs are not present today, that they 
declined, unlike our financial institution and bank presidents 
and CEOs.
    The Chair notes that some Members may have additional 
questions for these witnesses, which they may wish to submit in 
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open 
for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions 
to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 
Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in 
the record.
    This hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X



                           September 20, 2022
                           
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