Insurance Law Commons^™

Which Law Is Supreme? The Interplay Between The New York Convention And The Mccarran-Ferguson Act, Brian A. Briz, César Mejía-Dueñas

University of Miami Law Review

The McCarran-Ferguson Act was enacted in 1945 to safeguard the rights of the states to regulate the business of insurance. It provides that acts of Congress not specifically related to the business of insurance are superseded by state laws that regulate the business of insurance. In 1970, the United States ratified the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention). Congress enacted Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act to implement the New York Convention. The New York Convention requires courts to recognize and enforce both private agreements to arbitrate and arbitration awards made …

Dual Regulation Of Insurance, Christopher French

Christopher C. French

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 …

Understanding Insurance Anti-Discrimination Laws, Ronen Avraham, Kyle D. Logue, Daniel Schwarcz

Articles

Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds into separate risk pools based on the differences in their risk profiles, first, so that different premiums can be charged to the different groups based on their differing risks and, second, to incentivize risk reduction by insureds. This is why we let insurers discriminate. There are limits, however, to the types of discrimination that are permissible for insurers. But what exactly are those limits and how are they justified? To answer these questions, this Article (a) articulates the leading fairness and efficiency arguments for and against limiting …

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.

When "Yes" Means "No": Mccarran-Ferguson, The New York Convention, And The Limits Of Congressional Assent, Aaron L. Wells

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article focuses on the awards and arbitration of the resolution of the international commercial disputes with respect to the cross-border contracts and agreements. The enactment of the McCarran-Ferguson Act of the U.S. was for the prevention of the general applicability of the federal legislation in the authority of the states for the purpose of regulating the insurance industry. Information on the decision of the Supreme Court of the U.S. regarding this issue is also presented.

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 Mccarran-Ferguson Act's Intersection With Foreign Insurance Companies, Angela D. Krupar

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note is designed to answer a simple question: must insurance companies incorporated in foreign countries follow the same rules as their competitors incorporated in this country? More specifically, it addresses whether the McCarran-Ferguson Act should reach foreign insurance companies and foreign commerce.

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-Variable Annuities-Application Of Investment Company Act Of 1940, William C. Brashares

Michigan Law Review

Anticipating the sale of variable annuity contracts as a part of its regular business, Prudential, a life insurance company, applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission for complete exemption from the requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Prudential claimed that it qualified for exemption as an insurance company under the definition of "insurance company" in the Investment Company Act ("a company ... whose primary and predominant business activity is the writing of insurance . . . and which is subject to supervision by the insurance commissioner or a similar official or agency of a state"). In the alternative, …

Insurance-State Regulation-Unauthorized Insurers False Advertising Process Act, Chester A. Skinner

Michigan Law Review

Recent Illinois legislation subjects foreign insurers who are not authorized to do business in Illinois and who circulate false advertising there to the jurisdiction of the state courts and the State Insurance Commissioner. When the Insurance Commissioner is informed of false or misleading advertising, he is to notify the supervisory insurance official of the domicile state of the foreign insurer. If this notice does not result in the cessation of the activity, the Commissioner may proceed against the insurer under the state's Unfair Trade Practice Act. Since the typical mail order insurer will not have agents or property within the …

Insurance-Regulation Under The Mccarran-Ferguson Act-Ftc Jurisdiction Not Ousted By A State Statute Proporting To Control Deceptive Advertising Mailed To Other States, Thomas D. Heekin

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner issued a cease-and-desist order prohibiting respondent from making statements in its advertising materials which violated the Federal Trade Commission Act. Respondent, a Nebraska health insurance company, mailed its circulars to residents of every state. The McCarran-Ferguson Act provides that "the Federal Trade Commission Act ... shall be applicable to the business of insurance to the extent that such business is not regulated by State law." A Nebraska statute prohibits an insurer domiciled there from engaging in unfair business practices in any state. In an action to set aside the FTC cease-and-desist order, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth …

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 …