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
Protection under an insurance policy. In property insurance, coverage lists perils insured against, properties covered, locations covered, individuals insured, and the limits of ...
Monetary sums attached to an insurance company's assets, as listed on the annual statement. ...
Difference between the yield on earning assets and the cost of interest-bearing liabilities. ...
Difference between the actual mortality experience and the expected mortality experience. In statistical terms, this is known as the deviation of the actual (X) from the expected (X). The ...
Coverage that indemnifies a third party lender if a customer refuses to repay a loan made on a faulty product and the dealer who arranged the loan refuses to correct the fault. This ...
One of two basic types of funding instruments for pensions or employee benefits, in which responsibility for plan assets is vested in a trustee. The other type is known as an insured plan, ...
Professional designation awarded by the American College. In addition to professional business experience in financial planning, recipients are required to pass national examinations in ...
Rules that apply to employee distributions (see rollover and withholding rules for qualified plan distributions: payment paid to employee) and that also apply to distributions to surviving ...
Coverage in automobile insurance providing protection in the event of physical damage (other than collision) or theft of the insured car. For example, fire damage to an insured car would be ...
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