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
Nonparticipating life insurance under which the first few annual premiums are smaller than would be the case under a traditional nonparticipating policy. While the maximum amount of these ...
Contracts of reinsurance in which expected income from investments is a major component of the UNDERWRITING process. Also, the ultimate liability of the reinsurer is limited. The reinsurer ...
Surcharge, in retrospective rating of property and liability insurance, added to the basic premium rate charged to reflect fixed cost of adjusting or settling losses. ...
Homeowners policy to cover the owner of a townhouse. ...
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 ...
Combination of coverages from property and liability policies. ...
Coverage for shippers of certain radioactive materials, such as medical or commercial isotopes, for direct loss or damage by radioactive contamination; does not cover transport of ...
Theory, named after the British economist John Maynard Keynes, that deals with current consumption at the expense of saving. This theory has important implications for life insurance ...
Title of a published set of rules, adhered to by member companies of major property and liability associations, that stipulate how losses should be adjusted when the same loss is covered by ...
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