This paper examines consumer protection regulation in insurance markets and discusses how regulation could be made more efficient and robust. The paper argues that regulatory costs could be lowered and effectiveness enhanced by better targeting regulations to address market failures. Regulations...

Research seeking to understand financial literacy and to enhance it through training or education is receiving greater attention and emphasis from policymakers. Unfortunately, relatively little of this research has focused on insurance products and consumers. This policy brief reviews what is...

In the debate over the proposed establishment of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, much attention has been given to discussion of whether consumers are irrational or incompetent and therefore need paternalistic regulators to look after them, and whether inadequate consumer protection...

Despite the presence of many and diverse sellers of insurance in most markets, insurance prices in some markets remain subject to regulation by state governments. Insurance rate regulation has a long and storied history in this country and the reasons for its continued existence are subject to...

In the recent debate over the appropriate governmental level at which to regulate insurance markets, opponents of a new federal role often raise concerns about the adequacy of consumer protection if regulation is removed from the states. This paper analyzes the need for market conduct regulation...

This paper analyzes the characteristics of U.S. insurers for purposes of determining whether they are systemically risky. More specifically, primary factors (size, interconnectedness, and lack of substitutability) and contributing factors (leverage, liquidity risk and maturity mismatch,...