Life Insurance by State

state insurance regulators

Life insurance is a state regulated product. A carrier can only sell its products within a state with the approval of the proper state regulator. Although there is a national association of state insurance commissioners which proposals model legislation and universal standards of regulation for insurers, each individual state has the authority to set its own insurance standards and require that carriers adhere to those standards to be admitted to do business in that state.

Each carrier that wishes to work in that state submits the proposed contract language for its policies and gains approval to provide that product in that state. There are many insurance products that are available in some states and not in others, and you’ll often find that the language on applications and other forms differs from state to state even for a single carrier.

This is one of the reasons that it is critical for a signed insurance application to include the state within which the application was signed. The laws of the state where the application was signed will control the contract, not the state where the insurance agent or carrier is based, nor the state where the consumer resides.

Here is a current list of websites for state insurance commissioners and regulators for the United States.

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