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
Single policy on the insured's property for: two or more different kinds of property in the same location; same kind of property in two or more locations; two or more different kinds of ...
Actual morbidity experience of an insured group as compared to the expected morbidity for that group. ...
Contractual agreement between two parties in which they agree to exchange a stream of interest payments on either a fixed rate for a floating rate or a floating rate for a fixed rate. The ...
In a mercantile open-stock burglary insurance policy, the dollar amount of coverage as required by the COINSURANCE clause. This dollar amount is the MAXIMUM PROBABLE LOSS (MPL) of ...
Intentional damage or destruction of another person or business's property. Insurance can be purchased by the owner of the property to protect against this exposure. ...
In many property insurance policies, a requirement that the insured carry insurance as a percentage of the total monetary value of the insured property. If this percentage is not carried, ...
Syndicate or association of insurance companies or reinsurance companies organized to underwrite a particular risk, usually with high limits of exposure. Each member shares in premiums, ...
Legislation that changed the tax treatment concerning child-care expenses so that an employee who has incurred child-care expenses greater than $4800 and who is participating in a ...
Contract that gives the insurance company the right, not the obligation, to buy a stipulated stock or bond at a specified price (strike price) at or before the date of expiration of the ...
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