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 Expense Allowance: payment to an insurance agent in addition to commissions. Expense allowances, that differ from company to company, vary with the amount of business agents ...
Fund that contains the portion of the premium that has been paid in advance for insurance that has not yet been provided. For example, if a business pays an annual premium of $1000 on ...
Membership organization of insurance companies that write workers compensation insurance. The organization collects statistics on the frequency and severity of job-related injuries to ...
Organization of trial attorneys who specialize in the representation of defendants who become subject to tort actions. Generally, these tort actions involve bodily injury or personal injury ...
Fund in a segregated account to provide for the return of unearned premiums on policies that are canceled. ...
In personal injury cases, damages awarded to the plaintiff for the loss of joy of living. For example, if a person's negligent act results in damage to another person's leg, the injured ...
Insurance in which most of the premium (generally 80 to 90%) is invested in traditional fixed income securities. The remainder of the premium is invested in call option contracts tied to a ...
Common exclusion in life and accidental death insurance (double indemnity) policies, indicating that coverage does not apply unless an insured is a passenger on a regularly scheduled ...
Means of projecting the costs of pension plans on a level basis over a specified future period of time. The actuarial value of each employee's future benefits to be paid at retirement is ...
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