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
Same as term Concurrency: in which at least two insurance policies provide identical coverage for the same risk. ...
Person covered under an employee benefit insurance plan. ...
Same as term Excess of Loss reinsurance: method whereby an insurer pays the amount of each claim for each risk up to a limit determined in advance and the reinsurer pays the amount of the ...
Provision of property insurance that establishes the amount for which an insured must be reimbursed for damaged or destroyed property according to the price a willing buyer would pay for ...
Coverage through an endorsement to the personal automobile policy (pap) to extend its protection against accidents within a 25 mile radius of the U.S. border. This coverage is excess over ...
Coverage for property which moves from location to location either on a scheduled or unscheduled basis. If the floater covers scheduled property, coverage is listed for each item. If a ...
Legislation that redefined life insurance and raised taxes on life insurance companies. Among the provisions were new rules for some life insurance products, including a definition of ...
Elimination of unnecessary financing costs and the redirection of those sums to activities that are more profitable. The concept is for the company to have a long-term view of its risk ...
Joint profit sharing and money purchase plan that is appropriate for businesses that desire the funding flexibility of the profit sharing plan and the higher tax-deductible (25% vs. 15%) ...
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