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
Day-to-day care that a patient (generally older than 65) receives in a nursing facility or in his or her residence following an illness or injury, or in old age, such that the patient can ...
Modest amounts of coverage sold on a debit basis. The face amount is usually less than $1000. ...
Same as term Export-Import Bank: partnership between an agency of the U.S. government and the Foreign Credit Insurance Association (50 commercial insurance companies, both stock and ...
Regulations of the national association of insurance commissioners (naic) that dictate provisions that all individual health insurance policies must contain. All states now require these ...
Indemnification of a school for the loss of tuition, and room and board fees when it is forced to suspend classes because of the occurrence of a peril. ...
Department in an insurance company that prepares policies to be sent to the policyholder, sends the policies, and keeps records of the policies that were sent. ...
Person who has the responsibility for examining the risk to determine whether or not to insure it. ...
Particular type of inland marine insurance. ...
Same as term Binder: temporary insurance contract providing coverage until a permanent policy is issued. In property and casualty insurance, some agents have authority to bind the insurance ...
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