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
Reinsurance term under which the reinsurer exercises its faculty or prerogative to insure a risk or reject a risk from a ceding company. ...
One of two bureaus that writes forms and files standard rates for inland marine insurance. The other is the inland marine insurance bureau. ...
Costs incurred by an insurance company other than agent commissions and taxes; that is, mainly the administrative expense of running a company. ...
Act first passed by the United States Congress in 1981 and later amended in 1986 that provides for the establishment of risk retention groups whose purpose is to sell product liability ...
Same as term Deductible: amount of loss that insured pays in a claim; includes the following types: Absolute dollar amount. Amount the insured must pay before the company will pay, up to ...
Sum that an insurance company charges a business firm to restore a property or liability insurance policy, or a bond, to its initial face value after the insurance company has paid a claim ...
Insurance company's reinsurance commissions and expense allowances divided by its adjusted surplus account. The smaller this ratio, the more financially sound the insurance company, since ...
Statute in most states under which, if no evidence exists in a common disaster (when an insured and beneficiary die within a short time of each other in an accident for which determination ...
Combination of contributions of many investors whose money is used to buy stocks, bonds, commodities, options, and/or money market funds, or precious metals such as gold, or foreign ...
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