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
Interest earned but not yet paid for a period of time that has elapsed since the last interest payment. ...
Assumption of liability through contractual agreement by one party, thereby eliminating liability on the part of another party. An example is a railroad sidetrack agreement with a ...
difference between the face value of a permanent life insurance policy and its accrued cash value. The pure cost of protection is based on this difference. For example, if the face value ...
Plan under the employee retirement income security act of 1974 (ERISA) for employees who are less than 50% vested. An employee must be permitted to buy back retirement benefits lost because ...
Same as term Contingent Business Income Coverage Form: coverage for loss in the net earnings of a business if a supplier business, subcontractor, key customer, or manufacturer doing ...
Investment risk associated with the possibility that there is a rise in the interest rates after a fixed income security has been purchased resulting in a decline in that security's price. ...
Legislation by a state that taxes out-of-state insurance companies operating in its jurisdiction in the same way that the state's own insurance companies are taxed in the second state. For ...
Right of an insured to make additional purchases of life insurance without having to take a physical examination or show other evidence of insurability. Additions can be bought at stated ...
Plan to control employer's health care cost through the introduction of practice guidelines or protocols for health care providers, and to improve the methods used by employers and ...
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