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
Sum that an insurance company charges a business firm to restore a property or liability insurance policy, or a bond, to its initial face value after the insurance company has paid a claim ...
Loss that is not a direct result of a peril. For example, damage to property of a business firm would be a direct loss, but the loss of business earnings because of a fire on its premises ...
Plan in which participant (employee) utilizes spending accounts to pay for health care costs not subject to reimbursement from a health insurance policy or health care provider. The ...
Funds receivable or payable that have not been paid in a timely manner, commercial credit insurance protects an insured against declines in the value of receivables due to insolvency of a ...
Additions of new entrants into an employee benefit insurance plan. ...
SCHEDULE provision of the new York insurance code and regulations under which the life insurance company must file with the Insurance Commissioner all expenses associated with selling new ...
Option under a participating life insurance policy by which the policy owner can elect to have the dividends purchase paid-up increments of permanent insurance. ...
Same as term adverse selection: process in life insurance by which an applicant who is uninsurable, or is a greater than average risk, seeks to obtain a policy from a company at a standard ...
Method by which each member of an insurance pool shares in each and every risk written by the other members of the pool. ...
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