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
Observance of an event occurring on a repeated basis that leads one to believe that a certain probability is attached to the occurrence of that event. For example, if there are a red ball ...
Same as term Contingent Business Income Coverage Form: coverage for loss in the net earnings of a business if a supplier business, subcontractor, key customer, or manufacturer doing ...
Frequency with which employees resign, are fired, or retire from a company, usually computed as the percentage, of an organization's employees at the beginning of a calendar year. The ...
Policy under which a portion of the death benefit (generally 25%) becomes payable to the insured for a specified medical condition prior to death. The purpose of the accelerated death ...
Individual prohibited under the employee retirement income security act of 1974 (erisa) from conducting transactions with a trust plan. The prohibition is intended to prevent a conflict of ...
Hospital, physician, or other provider of health care that an insurer recommends to insureds. A PPO allows insurance companies to negotiate directly with hospitals and physicians for health ...
Latin phrase meaning "beyond power or authority" describing an act by a corporation that exceeds its legal powers. For example, corporations do not have the authority to engage in the ...
State law that stipulates the establishment of required reserves for claims made basis liability coverage contracts, removes the excess statutory reserves, and directs that all amounts that ...
To accumulate. For example, under one of the dividend options of a participating life insurance policy, dividends can accumulate at interest by leaving them with the insurance company; cash ...
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