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
Excess funds above the amount required to establish legal reserves for the policies in force. These excess funds are generated as the result of mortality savings, excess interest earned on ...
Cash value of life insurance that accumulates according to a table in a policy. It reflects premiums in the early years that exceed the pure cost of protection during that period. If a ...
Legislation that raised taxes on life insurers and further defined life insurance. Because the tax equity and financial responsibility act of 1982 and 1983 (TEFRA) failed to raise the ...
Group whole life insurance policy designed to reduce an employee's exposure to income tax on the value of life insurance provided by the employer. The policy separates the term element from ...
Retirement plan under which benefits are fixed in advance by formula, and contributions vary. The defined benefit plan can be expressed in either of two ways: Fixed Dollars: Unit benefit ...
Premium that remains unchanged over time, regardless of any change in the nature of the risk. ...
Annuity that begins payments after a single premium is paid. For example, the annuitant pays a single premium of $100,000 on June 1 of the current year and begins receiving a monthly income ...
Insurance company that does not utilize the rates and policies of a rating bureau. ...
Coverage usually written as an endorsement to property policies such as the Standard Fire Policy. A loss must be by the intentional acts of vandals. This peril is of particular importance ...
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