Insurance Law Commons^™

Competition And Regulation In The Insurance Sector: Reassessing The Mccarran-Ferguson Act, Susan Beth Farmer

Susan Beth Farmer

This article was presented at a symposium entitled “Public and Private: Are the Boundaries in Transition?” sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute on June 24, 2010. It proposes a different paradigm, which more precisely describes regulation and competition in the insurance sector. This relationship is the shifting boundary between state and federal regulation instead of a boundary between the public and private sectors. The McCarran-Ferguson Act was adopted to protect firms acting in the business of insurance from federal antitrust scrutiny, but its language and impact goes far beyond federal competition law. So broad is the exemption that the modern …

The Antitrust Implications Of Collaborative Standard Setting By Insurers Regarding The Use Of Genetic Information In Life Insurance Underwriting, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Robert H. Jerry II

Whenever two or more market participants collaborate to restrain trade, the potential applicability of federal and state antitrust laws must be considered. When the collaborating parties are insurance companies, a further layer of analysis may be necessary to determine whether the activity is exempt from federal antitrust regulation. Even if the activity enjoys an exemption, state antitrust law may have different things to say about the activity. Embedded in each of these levels of analysis are many difficult and complex subsidiary questions. In short, the law of insurance antitrust is not a subject for the faint of heart. Antitrust law …

Model-Based Pricing In Hurricane Insurance: A Case Study For Judicial Reform Of The Mccarran-Freguson Act, Benjamin Holland Able

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The McCarran-Ferguson Act (MFA) exempts various aspects of state insurance operations from federal antitrust enforcement. This exemption is a source of longstanding controversy, due in part to its potentially harmful effect on consumers in product pricing. In hurricane insurance, there is a burgeoning debate concerning insurers' use of predictive computer models rather than shared loss data to set premiums for the industry. By using these models in hurricane-prone states, insurers have increased the price of hurricane insurance dramatically. Where these new prediction methods are used, MFA exemption may facilitate supracompetitive pricing in ways its architects could not have foreseen. This …

Group Life And Health Ins. V. Royal Drug Co.: The Narrowing Exemption Of The Business Of Insurance From Federal Antitrust Scrutiny , Stanley K. Yamada Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Competition And Regulation In The Insurance Sector: Reassessing The Mccarran-Ferguson Act, Susan Beth Farmer

Journal Articles

This article was presented at a symposium entitled “Public and Private: Are the Boundaries in Transition?” sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute on June 24, 2010. It proposes a different paradigm, which more precisely describes regulation and competition in the insurance sector. This relationship is the shifting boundary between state and federal regulation instead of a boundary between the public and private sectors. The McCarran-Ferguson Act was adopted to protect firms acting in the business of insurance from federal antitrust scrutiny, but its language and impact goes far beyond federal competition law. So broad is the exemption that the modern …

Much Ado About Possibly Pretty Little: Mccarran-Ferguson Repeal In The Health Care Reform Effort, Christopher L. Sagers

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Since 1945, the McCarran-Ferguson Act (MFA) has shielded the “business of insurance” from antitrust liability, so long as the challenged conduct is “regulated by State Law” and does not constitute “boycott, coercion, or intimidation.” This law, like the dozens of other statutory antitrust exemptions that still exist for other industries, has more or less always been controversial, and efforts to repeal it date back more than thirty years. This Essay asks two questions: (1) what consequences the pending repeal measures might have if one of them becomes law; and (2) what a close examination of this effort might teach us …

The Antitrust Implications Of Collaborative Standard Setting By Insurers Regarding The Use Of Genetic Information In Life Insurance Underwriting, Robert H. Jerry Ii

UF Law Faculty Publications

Whenever two or more market participants collaborate to restrain trade, the potential applicability of federal and state antitrust laws must be considered. When the collaborating parties are insurance companies, a further layer of analysis may be necessary to determine whether the activity is exempt from federal antitrust regulation. Even if the activity enjoys an exemption, state antitrust law may have different things to say about the activity. Embedded in each of these levels of analysis are many difficult and complex subsidiary questions. In short, the law of insurance antitrust is not a subject for the faint of heart.

Antitrust law …

Insurance - Federal Regulation - Authority Of Federal Trade Commission To Regulate False Advertising By Insurance Companies As Affected By The Mccarran-Ferguson Act, Charles C. Moore S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner, the FTC, issued cease and desist orders prohibiting respondent health and accident insurance companies, doing business in interstate commerce, from disseminating allegedly false and deceptive advertising through the medium of local agents. These orders, issued pursuant to the FTC act, sought to proscribe such activity both in states that had statutes prohibiting unfair and deceptive practices and in states that did not. The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Sixth Circuits concluded that the FTC had no authority to regulate such advertising in states which had prohibitory legislation. On certiorari to the United States Supreme Court, held, …

The Adequacy Of State Insurance Rate Regulation: The Mccarran-Ferguson Act In Historical Perspective, Spencer L. Kimball, Ronald N. Boyce

Michigan Law Review

Any substantial inquiry into the functioning of the insurance commissioner in American society poses the question, at the threshold of the inquiry, whether state regulatory power over the insurance business is likely to continue, or whether insurance will fall increasingly under the aegis of the federal government. This article seeks to ascertain the minimum conditions for the permanent preservation of state regulatory power over the insurance business, and to determine whether they are now satisfied. These conditions may be summarily stated: the Congress of the United States has shown its willingness to apply federal antitrust and marketing legislation to the …