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
Conveying of assets from the donor to the beneficiary as a means of minimizing the legal tax obligation of the estate of the donor and avoiding probate. ...
Measurement of the response of the cash flow of an insurance company to various interest rate scenarios; for example, how rising interest rates will affect the number of life insurance ...
Assumption that an employer is liable for negligent acts or omissions of employees that result in bodily injury and/or property damage to third parties if those acts are in the course of ...
Life insurance rate determined by the valuation of company policy reserves. State regulators set strict standards for policy reserves to make certain that life insurers will have enough ...
In property insurance coverages, provision whereby the limit of the policy automatically increases at each policy anniversary date, subject to the insured's rejection of such an increase. ...
Performance of management functions associated with administering an employee benefit insurance plan, to include actuarial services, booklet and contract plan designing, billing, ...
Legislation establishing the minimum education and experience level required by the state as a prerequisite for a person to become a licensed agent. ...
Events that do not have any influence on the occurrence or nonoccurrence of another event; for example, a plane crashing in Shreveport should have no influence on a plane crashing in Dallas. ...
Evaluation of the demographic characteristics of the entire group (such as age, sex, morbidity, mortality), as opposed to the evaluation of individuals in that group. ...
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