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Full-Text Articles in Law
Transparently Opaque: Understanding The Lack Of Transparency In Insurance Consumer Protection, Daniel Schwarcz
Transparently Opaque: Understanding The Lack Of Transparency In Insurance Consumer Protection, Daniel Schwarcz
Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Consumer protection in most domains of financial regulation centers on transparency. Broadly construed, transparency involves making relevant information available to consumers as well as others who might act on their behalf, such as academics, journalists, newspapers, consumer organizations or other market watchdogs. By contrast, command and control regulation that affirmatively limits financial firms’ products or pricing is relatively uncommon in financial regulation. This Article describes a remarkable inversion of this pattern: while state insurance regulation frequently employs aggressive command and control consumer protection regulation, it typically does little or nothing to promote transparent markets. Rather, state lawmakers routinely either completely …
Reevaluating Standardized Insurance Policies, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Reevaluating Standardized Insurance Policies, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
This Article empirically debunks the common claim that homeowners insurance policies do not vary across different insurance carriers. It demonstrates that carriers' homeowners policies differ radically with respect to numerous important coverage provisions. It also reports that a substantial majority of these deviations produce decreases in the amount of coverage relative to the presumptive industry standard, though some deviations increase coverage. Additionally, the Article describes the surprising absence of any mechanisms by which even informed and vigilant consumers could comparison shop among carriers on the basis of differences in coverage. It closes by reviewing various regulatory and judicial options for …
Regulation Insurance Sales Or Selling Insurance Regulation: Against Regulatory Competition In Insurance, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Regulation Insurance Sales Or Selling Insurance Regulation: Against Regulatory Competition In Insurance, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
In certain regulatory regimes, including those governing banking and corporate law, firms are permitted to choose among multiple competing regulators. This Article examines the desirability of such regulatory competition in the context of property, casualty and life insurance markets. It analyzes various different approaches to structuring such regulatory competition, including those embodied in two recent reform proposals, the Optional Federal Charter (OFC) and the Single License Proposal (SLP). Ultimately, the Article argues that regulatory competition of any sort would undermine the core goals of insurance regulation, harming consumers, insurers, and third parties.
The British Approach To Consumer Financial Disputes: A Model For Reform In Insurance Law And Beyond, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
The British Approach To Consumer Financial Disputes: A Model For Reform In Insurance Law And Beyond, Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Daniel Benjamin Schwarcz
Much of insurance law and regulation is concerned with compensating consumers who have been wrongly denied coverage. But policyholders nonetheless have relatively few realistic options for challenging an insurer’s adverse coverage determination. Litigation is often too slow and costly for those who have recently suffered significant financial loss. Meanwhile, the alternative dispute resolution options that do exist – such as the mediation services that insurance regulators offer or the existing variants of insurance arbitration – are generally either ineffective or unavailable for most disputes. This Article proposes a new way forward by looking to the United Kingdom’s innovative Financial Ombudsman …