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
Coverage in which individuals who cannot obtain conventional automobile liability insurance, usually because of adverse driving records, are placed in a residual insurance market. Insurance ...
Cost of replacing damaged or destroyed property with comparable new property, minus depreciation and obsolescence. For example, a 10-year-old living room sofa will not be replaced at ...
Same as term Medical Examination: physical checkup required of applicants for life and/or health insurance to ascertain if they meet a company's underwriting standards or should be ...
Coverage in which one premium payment is made and the policy is fully paid up with no further premiums required. ...
Circumstance under which there is a significant deviation of the actual aggregate losses from the expected aggregate losses. For example, a hurricane is a hazard that is catastrophic in ...
Agreement by an insurance company to underwrite business submitted by an agent or broker even though that business is substandard. The object is to continue to attract profitable business ...
Requirement that the combination of medicare and the employer's plan can not be greater than the amount the employer's plan would pay without Medicare. ...
Provision of health maintenance organization (HMO) coverage. A member who is critically injured within the geographical service area of the HMO can use the nearest hospital for emergency ...
Process in life insurance by which an applicant who is uninsurable, or is a greater than average risk, seeks to obtain a policy from a company at a standard premium rate. Life insurance ...
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