R Street Institute releases annual insurance regulation report card.
Georgia earned a “C” grade and 40th nationwide ranking for insurance regulation, according to the 2015 report card released by the R Street Institute.
R Street, a nonprofit dedicated to free market solutions, seeks to answer three fundamental questions with this annual report: 1) How free are consumers to choose the insurance products they want?, 2) How free are insurers to provide the insurance products consumers want? and 3) How effectively are states discharging their duties to monitor insurer solvency, police fraud and consumer abuse and foster competitive, private insurance markets?
Politicization was the primary weakness leading to Georgia’s mediocre rating. Insurance commissioners are elected in the Peach State, which is an automatic 20-point deduction in scoring. “Insurance regulation is a technical matter and, by and large, should be insulated from the political process and prevailing political concerns…the introduction of political pressure to the process of insurance regulation inevitably leads to negative consequences,” the report said.
Georgia did score well with workers’ compensation insurance market competitiveness, however, which was the state’s key strength in the report.
The full report can be found here.