Financial advisors who sell insurance should be able to register in more than one state at the same time by mid-2016, an industry lobbyist said.

Advisors can probably expect to be able to register in several states simultaneously within a year and a half, Lee Covington, lobbyist for the Insured Retirement Institute, said Thursday.

Covington made his prediction shortly after the Senate passed a bill creating the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers. It’s expected to be signed by President Obama.

The groundwork has been laid to beat the law’s two-year deadline for multistate registration, he said.

“We’re not starting from scratch. We have the model state rules in place. We have the technology in place to make the states’ license registrations conform with each other. People are eager to have NARAB become operational,” Covington said.

The arrival of multistate registrations will depend on how quickly the Senate confirms the 13 NARAB board members, who are appointed by the president, he noted.

Five members will be representatives of the insurance industry, with political affiliation not a criteria for their selection, according to the legislation.

However, the remaining eight seats, to be filled by past and present state insurance commissioners, must be divided equally between Democrats and Republicans.

NARAB is obligated to have consumer protection rules at least as stringent as those in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Producer Licensing Model Act

Advisors licensed through the system will be subject to the consumer protection and market conduct regulations of each state they register in.

States won’t have to change their rules to conform to NARAB, Covington said.