A U.S. senator who backed tougher capital rules for nonbank financial firms said on Tuesday that regulators misread how that requirement applied to insurance companies, and she has proposed new legislation to clear up the confusion. Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, introduced an amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street oversight law that said large nonbank firms should meet leverage limits that are at least as stringent as the rules that banks follow. Insurance companies have since complained that they are structured differently than banks and already meet leverage requirements imposed by state regulators, so they should not have to follow the same capital rules. Officials with the U.S. Federal Reserve, which now regulates American International Group Inc and Prudential Financial Inc, have questioned whether Dodd-Frank allows them to tailor the rules for insurers. Collins told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday that the Fed has flexibility to tailor its
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