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
Hospital insurance program that provides medical professional liability insurance coverage to non employed hospital physicians. The objective of this means of insurance coverage is to ...
Coverage for negligent acts or omissions of an operator of a motel or hotel resulting in bodily injury to guests and damage or destruction of a guest's property. ...
Financial incentives credited to the policy to encourage the policyowner to keep the policy in force. The incentives may be utilized by: (1) applying them to the policy cash value after a ...
Income paid under a disability policy that is not covered under workers compensation benefits. It is usually expressed as a percentage of the insured's income prior to the disability, but ...
Bureau insurer that files its statistical and underwriting experience with a rating bureau. ...
Coverage if an insured is legally liable for bodily injury or property damage caused by an automobile. The personal automobile policy (PAP) and the business automobile policy (BAP) cover ...
Sums payable to the winning plaintiff by the losing defendant in a court of law; can take any or all of these forms: general, punitive, and special. ...
Purchasing bond investments that mature at different time intervals. ...
Describing the time of payment of face amount (face of policy) upon the death of the insured, or when the cash value in an endowment insurance policy equals the face amount. ...
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