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
Cancellation of an insurance policy on the date that policy becomes effective. This type of cancellation does not require any fees to be paid to the insurance company. ...
Display of percentage of earned premiums as a function of the time in days for term property insurance policies originally written for one year or longer. These tables are used to compute ...
Retention of all files of policies sold by the agent of record who, according to written agreement with the insurance company, has the exclusive rights to solicit renewals. ...
Rule adopted by the financial accounting standards board that requires that obligations owed to re-insurers under multiyear insurance contracts must be reported as liabilities by the ceding ...
Net income expressed as a percentage of average total equity. This percentage measures profitability by expressing how efficiently invested capital or equity is being utilized. ...
Relationship between occupation of an insured and degree of risk in such coverages as life, health, and workers compensation. Some occupations are more risky than others; for example, a ...
Business interruption insurance in which the insured is indemnified for loss of earnings and payment of expenses resulting from adverse weather conditions. For example, the raining out of a ...
Important means of preventing accidents and injuries. Insurers take corporate safety programs into account when rating workers compensation and other business insurance policies. ...
Coverage for a tenant with a favorable lease (enabling the lessee to rent premises for less than the market value). If the lease is canceled by the lessor because an insured peril (such as ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.