State insurance commissioners have been meeting privately with insurers to hear their views on risk in private credit, which now makes up as much as a quarter of total insurer holdings.

New Jersey acting insurance commissioner Susan Ochs disclosed the meetings Wednesday during a public session of the summer conference of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group made up of the top insurance regulators in every state.

"We heard about some meaningful private-credit market trends from a boots-on-the-ground perspective from significant investors in the space," Ochs said. The takeaways about private-credit risk will "enhance our regulatory tool kit," she said.

In May, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asked state commissioners if they have the right tools to assess private credit risk, according to one commissioner's account of that meeting.

Ochs also said the NAIC staff did an internal analysis of overall insurance industry exposure to private credit, which it provided privately to regulators.