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
Person (the transferee to whom the property is transferred) who is at least two generations younger than the person (the transferor) who is transferring the property. This type of property ...
Period allowed an insured to notify an insurer of loss. Many policies require immediate written notice, or notice as soon as practicable. Different types of policies have their own time ...
Program through which employees purchase individual life insurance and disability income insurance by having the employer reduce their income by the required insurance premium. Since the ...
Insurance policy, particularly property and liability insurance, which the owner cannot assign to a third party. ...
Annuity contract. If the annuitant dies before receiving income at least equal to the premiums paid, a beneficiary receives the difference in installments. If the annuitant lives after the ...
Addition to a homeowners insurance policy, or other personal or business property policies, to provide extra coverage for listed articles. The standard policy has dollar limits on certain ...
Length of time required to amortize the excess expenses of acquiring a given group of life insurance policies. In acquiring a policy, a life insurance company may incur expenses (such as ...
Attachment of decreasing term life insurance to an ordinary life policy to provide monthly income to a beneficiary if death occurs during a specified period. If the insured dies after the ...
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 ...
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