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 Final insurance: premiums paid out of funds borrowed from the cash value of a life insurance policy. ...
Of four SEC divisions that regulates the securities markets and the participants within these markets. ...
Amount expressed as a liability on the insurance company's balance sheet for benefits owed to policy owners. These reserves must be maintained according to strict actuarial formulas as they ...
Government agency, under the McCarran-Ferguson act (public law 15), that has no authority over insurance matters to the extent the states regulate insurance to the satisfaction of Congress. ...
Relinquishment of rights to benefits when an employee withdraws previous contributions to a plan. An employee who had not withdrawn these contributions would have been entitled to full ...
Method of establishing rates in which the current year's premium is calculated to reflect the actual current year's loss experience. An initial premium is charged and then adjusted at the ...
Provision in a life insurance policy that protects its proceeds from the beneficiary's creditors. On payment, the beneficiary loses the protection of the spendthrift trust clause and the ...
Payment due on the renewal of an insurance policy. The premium may be adjusted up or down to reflect the loss experience of the underwriting classification to which the insured belongs. ...
Circumstance under which the insured maintains that, if an insurance policy covers at least two scheduled items of real or personal property, in the event of a loss applicable coverage ...
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