Pennsylvania Insurance Law Attorneys

Insurance law is the name given to practices of law surrounding insurance, including insurance policies and claims. It can be broadly broken into two categories - regulation of the business of insurance and regulation of claim handling.

As a preliminary matter, insurance companies are generally required to follow all of the same laws and regulations as any other type of business. This would include zoning and land use, wage and hour laws, tax laws, and securities regulations. There are also other regulations that insurers must also follow.

Insurance regulation that governs the business of insurance is typically aimed at assuring the solvency of insurance companies. Thus, this type of regulation governs capitalization, reserve policies, rates and various other "back office" processes.

In the United States each state typically has a statute creating an administrative agency. These state agencies are typically called the Department of Insurance, or some similar name, and the head official is the Insurance Commissioner, or a similar titled officer.

In the United States regulation of insurance companies is almost exclusively conducted by the states and their insurance departments. Various states have different names for their regulatory agencies and regulators. In many states the department is called the Department of Insurance, and the regulator is called the Insurance Commissioner - although there are numerous variations. The federal government has explicitly exempted insurance from federal regulation in most cases.