Market Regulation Handbook

The Market Regulation Handbook is the NAIC publication that state examiners work from when they look at how a company treats consumers. It combines what used to be two separate references, the Market Conduct Examiners Handbook and the Market Analysis Handbook, and its stated goal is uniform, standardized market analysis and market conduct examinations. That uniformity is why two exams run in different states are recognizably the same procedure, even where the statutes underneath them are not.

Two practical notes for anyone trying to read it. The Handbook itself is a priced NAIC publication sold by subscription, so it is not something you can simply open in a browser. What is published freely is the Examination Standards Summary, a compilation of examination standards drawn from the current edition, and it carries its own warning that it does not represent every standard, methodology, or area of review a department might use. Do not treat the Summary as the full scope of an exam, and do not quote chapter numbers from memory, because the numbering has moved between editions.

The AI connection is indirect and load-bearing. AI never got its own examination chapter. It arrived inside the general operations and management standards, which ask whether records are adequate, accessible, and orderly, whether the company cooperates with examiners on time, and whether it monitors entities acting on its behalf. The NAIC Model Bulletin points at this same document when it describes the continuum of market actions an insurer can face. In other words, the question at an exam is rarely “explain your algorithm.” It is “produce the file,” and the market conduct exam is where that request arrives. Our guide to what a market conduct exam is walks through what starts one and how it proceeds.