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
Liability policy that covers all liability exposures for a large group that has something in common. For example, wrap-up insurance can be written for all the various businesses working ...
Partnership in which family members hold all interest in the partnership. This partnership is treated as a cash flow through stand-alone entity. All sums of income and credits, as well as ...
Model state law of the NAIC that requires that the insurance policy contain language that meets a readability test (usually, the Flesch readability test that uses a formula approach to ...
Rules used by state regulators to value securities on the books of insurance companies. Bonds with acceptable credit quality are carried at amortized value, which is the face value plus or ...
Form whose purpose it is to help the agent and the prospective policyowner judge the validity of the insurance company's policy illustrations. This questionnaire's focus is on the ...
Marine cargo coverage for a single shipment of goods. Also known as special risk insurance and trip cargo insurance. Contrasts with open policy cargo insurance that covers all of a ...
In property insurance policy, clause that stipulates that if legislative acts or acts of the insurance commissioner's office expand the coverage of an insurance policy or endorsement forms ...
Mandatory age of retirement. ...
Premise that, out of a large group of people, a given number will die each year (conversely, a given number will remain alive each year) until all the people in that original group are ...
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