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
Additional Living Expense Insurance is a type of coverage present on several types of Homeowner’s Insurance that reimburses additional costs caused because of the insured’s ...
Coverage outside an insured's home for personal items usually carried or worn while traveling. Protection is for personal property (apparel and jewelry), not for real property or property ...
Group in which subscribing members agree to (1) regulations governing their behavior, and (2) the qualifications that reinsurance contracts ceded to them must meet in order to be ...
Interest adjusted method that measures the cost of life insurance. Named for the late distinguished actuary M. Albert Linton. This method compares a whole life policy with a combination of ...
Excess of the value of an insurer's admitted assets over the total value of its liabilities and minimum capital requirements established by applicable statutes designed to assure the ...
Type of accounting method, in life insurance, designed to match revenues and expenses of an insurer according to principles designed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the ...
Money paid through state and federal programs to workers who are temporarily unemployed. The program, which was created by the social security act of 1935, is managed by the individual ...
Arrangement by which a policy owner authorizes an insurance company to draft his checking account for premiums due on an insurance policy. The drafting is usually monthly, persistency of ...
Future benefits to be paid to the policyholders and beneficiaries, assigned surpluses, and miscellaneous debts. These primary liabilities take the form of reserves, which must be listed on ...
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