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
Variable-rate bonds whose coupon and value increases as interest rates decrease. ...
Important 1944 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the insurance business constituted interstate commerce and was thus subject to the SHERMAN antitrust act. This decision came in U.S. v. ...
Option clause in a disability buy-out insurance policy that permits the owner of the policy to increase the limits of coverage for the expenses associated with the buy-out process. Usually, ...
Death caused by a person without legal justification. Wrongful death may be the result of negligence, such as when a drunken driver hits and kills someone; or it may be intentional, as when ...
Act that mandates that employers who have at least 26 employees must provide a terminating employee and family members, if residents of employee's household, with health insurance coverage ...
Status in which an insurance company holds funds of its insureds (the payment of premiums) in trust, and through an insuring agreement promises to make all benefit payments for which it has ...
Addition to reflect exposures with a greater probability of loss than standard exposures. For example, insuring a munitions factory obviously requires a premium greater than that required ...
Type of hold-harmless agreement made by a property owner as a condition for being served by a railroad spur. If the owner wants a special sidetrack, the railroad requires the owner to ...
Term referring to the most common charge, in health insurance, for a service. ...
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