State Supervision And Regulation
Primary responsibility for overseeing the insurance industry that has rested with individual states since 1945, after Congress passed the MCCARRAN-FERGUSON ACT (PUBLIC LAW 15). In addition to supervision and regulation, states receive taxes and fees paid by the industry that amount to several billion dollars a year. State insurance laws are administered by state insurance departments that are responsible for making certain that (1) rates are adequate, not unfairly discriminatory, and not unreasonably high, and (2) insurance companies in the state are financially sound and able to pay future claims. To this end, states set requirements for company reserves, require annual financial statements, and examine company books. Each state has an insurance commissioner or superintendent who is either elected or appointed by the governor, with responsibility for investigating company practices, approving rates and policy forms, and ordering liquidation of insolvent insurers. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INSURANCE COMMISSIONERS (NAIC) has drafted model legislation and worked for policy uniformity, but regulations vary widely from state to state.
Whether insurers should be regulated by the states or the federal government remains at issue, but so far insurers and the NAIC lobbying have been effective in resisting federal regulation. Nevertheless, the federal government has a profound effect on the insurance industry through its taxes and a variety of regulations.
Popular Insurance Terms
Combination life insurance policy consisting of ordinary life and double the amount of term life. Should the insured die within a stipulated time period, the double term amount and ordinary ...
Limiting provision. Exclusions listed in group health plans include: benefits under Workers Compensation; certain dental procedures; convalescent or rest cures; medical expenses resulting ...
Specified amount received by an insured at the end of an endowment period (usually the face amount of the endowment policy), or by the owner of an ordinary life policy (usually the ...
Section of an insurance company that sells through brokers. Some brokerage departments are self-contained in that they have their own underwriting and marketing staffs. Brokerage ...
Life insurance company whose agents sell ordinary life insurance and industrial life insurance. ...
Special type of charitable remainder trust (CRT) under which a designated beneficiary (cannot be a charitable beneficiary) receives an annual fixed income. The grantor of the trust is ...
Insurance that grew out of the urban demonstrations and riots of the 1960s. Because of the deteriorated social and economic circumstances in these areas, it became impossible for many ...
Investment strategy that advocates the transfer of amounts from one category of investment to another category according to a perception of how each of these categories of investments will ...
Provision in most property insurance policies that permits a policyholder to use the insured premises to store materials and handle them in the manner needed to pursue his or her line of ...
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