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
One that provides group health or pension benefits for a multiemployer plan. To lower the cost, small firms band together to take advantage of the economies of large group underwriting. ...
Coverage on an all risks basis for glass breakage, subject to exclusions of war and fire. Thus, if a vandal throws a brick through a window of an insured's establishment, the coverage would ...
Sum of insurance provided by a policy at death or maturity. ...
Behavior or character standing of an individual in a community. Some personal habits are considered in underwriting an insurance application. ...
Act first passed by the United States Congress in 1981 and later amended in 1986 that provides for the establishment of risk retention groups whose purpose is to sell product liability ...
Uncertain prospect of financial gain or loss. A business investment that could either return a profit or sustain a loss, such as the purchase of a common stock, is an example of a ...
Transfer of high severity risks through the insurance contract to protect against catastrophic occurrences. While insurance is generally not the most cost-effective means of recovery of ...
Subsidiary, smaller company that is owned and controlled by a much larger company. In many instances pup companies are used to write special risk insurance for which the larger company does ...
Management philosophy developed by W. Edwards Deming, the thesis of which is the continuous improvement in quality through research in customer satisfaction and the empowerment of ...
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