Those industries include auto insurance, life insurance, insurance claims and insurance policies. Insurance law is typically broken down into two categories: regulation of the business of insurance and regulation of claim handling. Practitioners of insurance must follow the same laws and regulations that other businesses within the country must follow. Those laws include zoning laws, wage and hour laws, land use laws, tax laws and securities regulations.
The first category of insurance law, the regulation of the business of insurance, deals with capitalization, reserve policies, rates and other back office processes. Even though there are nationwide laws created for insurance companies to follow in the United States, each individual state also creates their own legislation for insurance companies that operate within that state to follow. Each state has its own Department of Insurance, or differently titled organization, and that department is headed up by the Insurance Commissioner, or someone of a similar title.
These agencies create a slate of administrative regulations that each insurance company in that state must follow and operate by on a daily basis.
Taking a brief look at the history of the insurance industry, policies for damage to one’s home can be traced all the way back to the 17th and 18th centuries while health insurance policies and auto insurance policies did not spring up until the 20th century.
Health insurance is more often than not provided by a person’s employer. Anyone that works a full-time job, 40 or more hours per week, is entitled to health insurance as provided by their employer. That health insurance usually includes premiums for doctor visits, coverage for hospital visits and extended visits, coverage for surgery, coverage for different medical procedures and money paid to the spouse if the person with the policy should pass away.
Automotive insurance is insurance that people purchase when they become a driver for the first time.
It is illegal in the United States to drive on any road without some form of auto insurance. A driver doesn’t have to have extensive auto insurance, they can have the minimum as required by their state. But if they do not have any auto insurance, they will be ticketed and in some states, their car can be legally towed on the spot of a traffic stop. Automotive insurance protects the driver in the event of their car being stolen, in the event of an accident caused by that driver, and other circumstances on the roads. If a driver causes an accident and has insurance, their insurance company will more than likely pay for the damage to the other person’s car as well as any legal fees from a lawsuit or any settlement reached from a lawsuit that ensues because of the accident.
Insurance law is not regulated by the federal government in most cases. The only way the federal government regulates insurance law is by mandating that each individual state have their own laws and regulations for insurance companies to abide by when practicing in their state of residence. The laws and regulations that states in the United States create are for the purpose of making sure that insurers do not create bad faith claims, that premiums are not incredibly high, and that contracts and policies issued to clients meet a minimum standard as specified by the state.
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