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
Group whole life insurance policy designed to reduce an employee's exposure to income tax on the value of life insurance provided by the employer. The policy separates the term element from ...
Same as term Captive Agent: representative of a single insurer or fleet of insurers who is obliged to submit business only to that company, or at the very minimum, give that company first ...
Approach advocated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in its 1979 life insurance cost disclosure report. It calculates the rate of return earned by the savings element of a life ...
Situation wherein the agent's conduct causes a client or prospective insured reasonably to believe that the agent has the authority to sell an insurance policy and contract on behalf of the ...
Legislation that provides for the inclusion in the estate of the decedent of lifetime transfers that involve a retained life interest in the following manner: decedent sells or gives to ...
Federal statute that permits the self-employed a 100% tax deduction for the family health care expenses to include health insurance premiums, disability INCOME insurance premiums, and ...
Essential part of an insurance policy. It names the individual (s) covered, property and locations covered, perils covered, the time a policy goes into force, and its termination date. ...
Requirement that a retired worker can have annual earnings of no more than a stipulated amount in order to receive a full retirement income under Social Security if under age 70. There is a ...
Method of reducing an employee pension according to IRS procedures: Offset method restricted to a DEFINED BENEFIT PLAN under which a mandatory percentage of the monthly Social Security ...
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