Terms Used In South Carolina Code > Title 38 > Chapter 29 - South Carolina Life and Accident and Health Insurance Guaranty Association

• Accident and health insurance: means insurance of human beings against death or personal injury by accident, and each insurance of human beings against sickness, ailment, and any type of physical disability resulting from accident or disease, and prepaid dental service, but not including coverages required by the Workers' Compensation Law of this State. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Account: means any of the three accounts created under § 38-29-50. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Admitted assets: means assets of an insurer considered admitted on the most recent statutory financial statement of the insurer filed with the department pursuant to § 38-13-80. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Alien insurer: means an insurer incorporated or organized under the laws of a country other than the United States of America, its states, commonwealths, territories, or insular possessions. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Annuity: means each contract or agreement to make periodic payments, whether in fixed or variable dollar amounts, or both, at specified intervals. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appointment: means an individual designated by an official or authorized representative of an authorized insurer to act on its behalf as a producer. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Association: means the South Carolina Life and Accident and Health Insurance Guaranty Association created under § 38-29-50. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• authorized: when used in the context of assessments means the board of directors has passed a resolution whereby an assessment will be called immediately or in the future from member insurers for a specified amount. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Benefit plan: means a specific employee, union, or association of natural persons benefit plan. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• called: when used in the context of assessments means that notice has been issued by the association to the member insurers requiring that an authorized assessment be paid within the time frame set forth within the notice. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Clerk of court: An officer appointed by the court to work with the chief judge in overseeing the court's administration, especially to assist in managing the flow of cases through the court and to maintain court records.
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• contract owner: means the person who is identified as the legal owner under the terms of the policy or contract or who is otherwise vested with legal title to the policy or contract through a valid assignment completed in accordance with the terms of the policy or contract and properly recorded as the owner on the books of the member insurer. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Department: means the Department of Insurance of South Carolina. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Director: means the Director of the Department of Insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Domestic insurer: means an insurer incorporated or organized under the laws of this State. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Extra-contractual claims: includes claims relating to bad faith in the payment of claims, punitive or exemplary damages, or attorney's fees and costs. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Germane: On the subject of the pending bill or other business; a strict standard of relevance.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Impaired insurer: means a member insurer which, after the effective date of this chapter, is not an insolvent insurer but has been placed under an order of rehabilitation or conservation by a court of competent jurisdiction. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Insolvent insurer: means a member insurer which, after the effective date of this chapter, is placed under an order of liquidation by a court of competent jurisdiction with a finding of insolvency. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• insurance: includes annuities. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurer: includes a corporation, fraternal organization, burial association, other association, partnership, society, order, individual, or aggregation of individuals engaging or proposing or attempting to engage as principals in any kind of insurance or surety business, including the exchanging of reciprocal or interinsurance contracts between individuals, partnerships, and corporations. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• License: means a document issued by the state's director or his designee authorizing a person to act as an insurance producer for the lines of authority specified in the document. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Life insurance: means a contract of insurance upon the lives of human beings. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Member insurer: means an insurer or health maintenance organization authorized to transact in this State any kind of insurance to which this chapter applies under § 38-29-40. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means an individual, corporation, limited liability company, partnership, association, governmental body, or entity or voluntary organization. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Policy: means a contract of insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Premium: means payment given in consideration of a contract of insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Premiums: means amounts or considerations received on covered policies or contracts less returned premiums, considerations and deposits and less dividends and experience credits. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Principal place of business: means the state in which a natural person who establishes policies or contracts for the direction, control, and coordination of the operations of the entity as a whole primarily exercises that function, determined by the association after consideration of the state in which the:
  
  (a) primary executive and administrative headquarters of the entity is located;
  
  (b) principal office of the chief executive officer of the entity is located;
  
  (c) board of directors conducts the majority of its meetings;
  
  (d) executive or management committee of the board of directors of the entity conducts the majority of its meetings;
  
  (e) management of the overall operations of the entity is directed; and
  
  (f) holding company or controlling affiliate has its principal place of business in the case of a benefit plan by affiliated companies comprising a consolidated corporation. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Receivership court: means the court in the insolvent or impaired insurer's state with jurisdiction over the conservation, rehabilitation, or liquidation of the member insurer. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Resident: means a person who resides in this State at the time the impairment as determined by a court of appropriate jurisdiction and to whom contractual obligations are owed. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Sell: means to exchange a contract of insurance by any means, for money or its equivalent, on behalf of an insurance company. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Solicit: means attempting to sell insurance or asking or urging a person to apply for a particular kind of insurance from a particular company. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• State: means a state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and a United States' possession, territory, or protectorate. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Structured settlement annuity: means an annuity purchased in order to fund periodic payments for a plaintiff or other claimant in payment for or with respect to personal injury suffered by the plaintiff or other claimant. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Terminate: means the cancellation of the relationship between an insurance producer and the insurer or the termination of a producer's authority to transact insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Unallocated annuity contract: means an annuity contract or group annuity certificate that is not issued to and owned by an individual, except to the extent of any annuity benefits guaranteed to an individual by an insurer under the contract or certificate. See South Carolina Code 38-29-20
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Verdict: The decision of a petit jury or a judge.