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
Same as term Close Corporation Plan: prior arrangement for surviving stockholders to purchase shares of a deceased stockholder according to a predetermined formula for setting the value of ...
Coverage provided for the insured's personal property in the event the insured incurs a loss resulting from theft, burglary, robbery, or malicious mischief, regardless of whether the loss ...
Coverage for property that moves from location to location from the perils of fire, lightning, explosion, windstorm, earthquake, collapse of bridges, flood, collision under one of the ...
To accumulate. For example, under one of the dividend options of a participating life insurance policy, dividends can accumulate at interest by leaving them with the insurance company; cash ...
Maximum amount of a specified type of insurance coverage, according to underwriting guidelines, that an insurance company feels it can safely underwrite on a particular exposure without ...
Rule of law under which a defendant who has two or more relationships with a plaintiff may be liable under any of these relationships. For example, an employer may be liable in two ways to ...
Written contract between an insured and an insurance company stating the obligations and responsibilities of each party. ...
Company in which shareholders limit their liability exposure to their percentage of ownership or equity interest in the company. Shareholders' personal assets are protected in the event of ...
Variation of ordinary life insurance under which current mortality experience and investment earnings are credited to the insurance policy either through the cash value account and/or the ...
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