Uncovered : the story of insurance in America /
"This book is a history of the insurance business and the regulation of that business in the United States. It begins by describing the early days of life, fire, and casualty insurance and the development of state regulation in the late nineteenth century, after a Supreme Court ruling exempted...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2024]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "This book is a history of the insurance business and the regulation of that business in the United States. It begins by describing the early days of life, fire, and casualty insurance and the development of state regulation in the late nineteenth century, after a Supreme Court ruling exempted the insurance business from federal regulation. From the outset, insurers adopted a quasi-public persona, emphasized the social benefits of their work, and sought to control the terms by which they interacted with government. Early political leaders agreed that insurers played an important role in the largely voluntary social safety net. Yet insurance is a business, and over time, periodic crises in life, fire, health, auto, and liability insurance highlighted gaps between the coverage that insurers were willing to provide and what the public demanded. The Depression was an inflection point, after which the federal government began to assume a greater role in the provision of insurance. Insurers enthusiastically pursued the growing business of employee benefits. A Supreme Court decision in 1944 created an opportunity to undo the state-based system, but Congress instead chose to preserve the status quo. Yet there are significant constraints on the ability of state regulators to solve important problems in insurance markets, as was made clear by cyclical problems in auto and property markets. As the twentieth century progressed, insurers and government have become interdependent; government serves as a financial backstop and relies on the insurance industry to participate in markets, including many that are publicly funded"--Publisher's description. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource : illustrations |
| Audience: | Specialized. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780190094188 0190094184 9780190094164 0190094168 9780190094171 0190094176 |