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 Graduated Life Table: mortality table that reflects irregularities from age to age due to chance fluctuations in the sequence of the rates of mortality. The rates of death as ...
Forgery insurance covering securities issues such as stocks and bonds. They protect the issuer of securities against forgery of the securities. ...
Coverage that goes into effect when an individual's claim reaches a specific threshold selected by the employer who has self-insurance. After this threshold is reached, the policy pays ...
Policy provision designed to restore an insured to his or her original financial position after a loss. The insured should neither profit nor be put at a monetary disadvantage by incurring ...
Maximum sum of money that the insurance company will pay, during the time interval that the product liability insurance coverage is in effect, for all product liability-related claims ...
Mechanism for providing coverage when the insured's underinsured motorist coverage limit is more than the tort feasor's limit of liability that has been previously reduced by claim payments ...
Addition to reserves of a life insurance company required by various states because the valuation premium is greater than the GROSS PREMIUM. Without a deficiency reserve, the normal reserve ...
Person for whom the trust was created and who receives the benefits thereof. In many instances a trust is established to prevent the careless exhaustion of an estate. For example, the ...
Coverage in the event of threats to injure an insured or damage or destroy his property. ...
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