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
Right of survivors to the interest in property of a deceased joint tenant as the result of property held in joint tenancy. ...
In insurance, fraudulent or unethical practice that is illegal under state law. States may fine or revoke the licenses of agents and brokers for unfair trade practices, including ...
Term meaning that an exporter of goods that are damaged or destroyed during international shipment relinquishes responsibility for the damage or destruction once the goods leave the point ...
Policy that combines life insurance coverage on two lives and pays policy proceeds on the second person's death with the accumulation potential of an underlying variable investment ...
Methods for payment of the value of a policy. An insurance company can select one of three options in settlement of a loss: make a cash payment; take possession of damaged or destroyed ...
Securities that derive their value from other financial instruments that are used by the insurance company to hedge its bets on which direction the market is moving. For example, cattle ...
Net cost of insurance with no markup to cover an intermediary's profit or expenses. An intermediary, such as a broker, sells an insurance product net; that is, there is no loading for his ...
Retirement plan in which money is currently allocated to fund an employees' pension. ...
Clause requiring an insured to cooperate with an insurance company by producing all evidence requested in settlement of a claim. The company may have difficulty settling a claim without the ...
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