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
One-year coverage that is renewable at the end of each year. Since the group plan is subject to experience rating, the premium rate upon renewal is based on such factors as the loss record ...
Same as term Compulsory Insurance: coverage required by the laws of a particular state. For example, many states stipulate minimum amounts of automobile liability insurance that must be ...
Total disability benefit in the form of a monthly income payment found in a disability income insurance policy to insured wage earners when their income has been interrupted or terminated ...
Search engine site that emphasizes the fields of environmental risk management, environmental engineering, environmental planning, physical and biological sciences, and various ...
Liability exposure, in insurance, associated with three classifications of individuals that may come upon an insured property: TRESPASSER: individual enters without permission. Generally ...
Actual or attempted malicious and deliberate burning of a physical asset owned by another party. Coverage against arson is provided under property insurance, but only if the insured has not ...
Coverage of two or more individuals with the death benefit payable at the last death. Premiums are significantly lower than for policies that insure one person, since the probability of ...
Government health care program in several European countries that has been proposed in various forms for the U.S., to be administered by the federal government. Plan A would cover all U.S. ...
Table used in calculating minimum non forfeiture values and policy reserves for ordinary life insurance policies. These tables, which give minimum values that must be guaranteed to policy ...
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