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
Expectations of investment return, mortality experience, and expenses used in projecting future cash values for life insurance and annuities. These projections cannot be part of the actual ...
Exchange of a new policy for one already in force. ...
Transfer of high severity risks through the insurance contract to protect against catastrophic occurrences. While insurance is generally not the most cost-effective means of recovery of ...
Procedure in Social Security that sets the benefit level for a dependent of a retired or disabled person who is receiving Social Security benefits. For example, if a retired or disabled ...
Means of providing insurance protection for the property of a business that is not at a fixed location. ...
Date, in insurance, on which a person becomes one year older. Depending on the insurance company, premiums in life and health insurance manuals are figured to the age-nearest-birthday or ...
Limited special purposes policy that provides liability and physical damage insurance for owners and operators of trucks while engaged in business. This insurance is often purchased by a ...
Disciplined approach to managing an insurance company's bond portfolio duration. When interest rates rise, the average maturity and duration of the bond portfolio is lengthened, resulting ...
Ratio of authorized control level risk-based capital of an insurance company to its total adjusted capital. This statistic determines regulatory action taken by the state's insurance ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.