For the past 21 years, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has published the Insurance Department Resources Report (IDRR) to help the states assess these resources in comparison to other states. The 2007 edition of the report is now available.
Developed primarily through an extensive survey of the NAIC member states, the IDRR is organized into five sections: Staffing; Budget and Funding; Examination and Oversight; Insurance Producers; and Consumer Services and Antifraud.
Information on the number of departmental staff and their functions, annual budgets, revenue flows, premium volume, the number of insurers and insurance producers, and the number of consumer complaints and inquires can be found in the report. An overview of the report findings include:
·Premiums increased by 11.5 percent to $1.6 trillion from 2006 to 2007.
·In 2007, the five states with the most premiums written in all lines were California,
New York, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. These five states accounted for 39.6 percent
of all insurance premiums in the United States.
·There were 7,773 domestic U.S. insurers in 2007.
·State insurance departments received more than 371,000 official complaints and
2.4 million inquiries.
As well as being a key assessment tool for state insurance departments, the IDRR is a helpful reference for state and federal legislators and regulators, as well as other public policymakers.