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
Formerly an employer's defense under which an injured employee had to bring a cause for action against the fellow employee causing the injury, not the employer. Workers Compensation laws ...
Coverage under a commercial workers compensation policy for situations in which an employee not covered under workers compensation laws could sue for injuries suffered under common law ...
Amount of the increase in the book of business of an insurance company over a specified time interval. ...
Model state law of the NAIC that requires the insurance agent who is replacing the policy to: give the policyholder a replacement notice; forward a signed copy of the replacement notice to ...
Sum of money paid on the principal amount of money invested or loaned. ...
Document used in the transportation of goods that must be presented when a claim is made for a loss incurred. This document establishes the fact that the goods were under the care, custody, ...
Those claims that arise when two or more property and casualty insurance companies have coverage on a loss. Which company then owes which portion of the claim must be determined. ...
Maximum limit of liability of an insurance company for a particular claim or kind of loss that is applicable in general to all such claims or losses. This maximum limit of liability is ...
System whereby the re insurer shares losses in the same proportion as it shares premium and policy amounts. Proportional reinsurance may be divided into the two basic forms: automatic ...
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