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
Confirmation by an insurance company of the acts of its agent, regardless of whether or not these acts were committed within the limit of authority granted the agent by the company. By so ...
Same as term Contingent Business Income Coverage Form: coverage for loss in the net earnings of a business if a supplier business, subcontractor, key customer, or manufacturer doing ...
Reduction of private pension benefits to avoid "duplication" of Social Security benefits, according to a formula. Many pension plans "offset," or reduce, monthly pension benefits by a ...
Clause added to an insurance policy providing waiver of premium (WP) if the premium payer dies or becomes disabled. For example, this option is available on insurance policies on a child's ...
Coverage for business firms operating abroad to insure them against loss due to political upheavals including war, revolution, confiscation, incontrovertibility of currency, and other such ...
Provision in a life insurance policy that death benefits will not be paid in the event an insured dies from war-related causes; or in lieu of a death benefit there is a return of premiums ...
method of determining the worth of property to be insured, or of property that has been lost or damaged; method of setting insurance company reserves to pay future claims ...
Element usually found in industrial life insurance policies under which the insurance company upon the death of the insured under certain conditions is allowed to choose the beneficiary if ...
Coverage for exposures that exhibit a possibility of financial loss. ...
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