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
Deleveraging of the insurance company's balance sheet. ...
Insurance that offers blanket coverage up to a certain dollar amount on all property of the classification covered by the policy. Floater policies, which cover property wherever it happens ...
Model state statute that governs terms for surrender of individual deferred annuities and cash value life insurance. This model, adopted by most states in the late 1970s and early 1980s, ...
Duration of a policy. Property and casualty coverages are usually written for one year, although a personal automobile policy can be for six months. Life insurance can be written on a term ...
Attachment to an insurance policy to complete its coverage. For example, the Standard Fire Policy must have certain forms attached for it to provide the coverage desired. ...
Same as term cash surrender value: money the policyowner is entitled to receive from the insurance company upon surrendering a life insurance policy with cash value. The sum is the cash ...
Same as term Maximum Foreseeable Loss: worst case scenario under which an estimate is made of the maximum dollar amount that can be lost if a catastrophe occurs such as a hurricane or ...
Policy clause that excludes coverage for loss of property if the cause of the loss cannot be identified. Mysterious disappearance is an exclusion in a standard inland marine insurance ...
Coverage for paintings, pictures, etchings, tapestries, art glass windows, antique furniture, coin collections, and stamp collections owned by individuals and businesses. These works are ...
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