The life insurance industry’s use of so-called retained asset accounts is getting an airing in Seattle, where state insurance commissioners have gathered.

Connecticut’s Thomas R. Sullivan, as co-chairman of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners panel investigating the accounts, said Monday that insurance regulators from around the country will “work together to create sound public policy” and provide “appropriate disclosure” about the life insurance industry’s use of the accounts.

Use of the accounts, which Sullivan said is a common practice in the industry, has been criticized in recent weeks after Bloomberg Markets reported that companies such as MetLife and Prudential were holding onto death benefit accounts and paying beneficiaries in increments.

New Hampshire Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny — co-chairman with Sullivan of the committee looking into the accounts — said “there have been relatively few consumer complaints about [retained-asset accounts], but it is our desire to make sure consumers have as many choices as possible and that all payment term options are easy to understand.”