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
Assets from a will transfer into an established life insurance trust. Through this mechanism, assets that have been probated are transferred into a living trust. ...
Reinsurance broker for a primary company (the re-insured). This broker is paid commissions by the reinsurance company, just as an agent is paid commissions by an insurance company for ...
Insurance company that is organized under the state laws by which the company is licensed and that is called a domestic insurer. Also, this insurance company may be chartered and licensed ...
Attachment of decreasing term life insurance to an ordinary life policy to provide monthly income to a beneficiary if death occurs during a specified period. If the insured dies after the ...
Investment risk associated with the relationship between the yield (interest, dividends, and capital) of financial instruments and the rate of inflation in the economy. For fixed income ...
Court-appointed or commissioner of insurance-appointed custodian to manage the affairs of an insurance company whose management is deemed unable to manage that company in a proper fashion. ...
Method of establishing rates in which the current year's premium is calculated to reflect the actual current year's loss experience. An initial premium is charged and then adjusted at the ...
Statement showing assets and liabilities of an individual. ...
Law by which many states attempt to regulate insurers who are unlicensed in those states. With a few notable exceptions, such as re insurers, insurance companies must be licensed in the ...
Have a question or comment?
We're here to help.