I spotted the lack of * shortly after posting.

re .*: having eliminated the first column and its delimiter, .* must be what is left over as the second and last column - why make the engine work harder?. It really is quite common that the remainder of a string is defined by elimination of specific features of the preceding characters and needs no further analysis - only when the .* is attempted earlier than such elimination is completed does it cause a problem.

re "if" - I opted for this rather than allowing any exceptions to just fall through the code, whereas no else is defined because neither was any provision for such exceptions stated in the requirement. Not seeing the benefit of this turns out to be a trap for habitual negative thinking: If there was a blank line in the data, your own solution, which apart from not filtering exceptions is fine, would accept the blank data and, for example, enter it into the database!