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
Type of excess of loss reinsurance in which the insurance company (cedent) cedes its risk of loss on incurred but not reported losses (IBNR) and previously reported losses. ...
Technique designed to permit the exchange of a life insurance policy that has an outstanding loan charged against it for another life insurance policy on a tax-free basis. The procedure is ...
Endorsement to a scheduled property floater that provides all risks protection for street clocks. Clocks and signs attached to business property can be covered under the Standard Fire ...
Property and/or liability coverage for a municipality. Municipalities are responsible for maintenance of through ways as well as a myriad of public services. Liability insurance for ...
Insurance for accountants covering liability lawsuits arising from their professional activities. For example, an investor bases a buying decision on the balance sheet of a company's annual ...
Combination of several policies with each adding an additional layer or limit of coverage above the limits of the policy that comes before it. For example, Policy A adds $100,000, then ...
Same as term Basic Limit of Liability: required minimum amounts of coverage that an insurance company will underwrite. For example, for auto liability coverage the minimum that many ...
Policy provision that provides coverage for continuing payroll expense of all employees of an insured business (except for officers and executives) for the first specified number of days of ...
Insurance sold by a stock insurance company that is usually in the form of nonparticipating insurance. ...
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