(a) The purposes of this chapter are to:

(1) promote the public welfare by regulating insurance rates to the end that they may not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory and to authorize and regulate cooperative action among insurers in rate making and in other matters within the scope of this chapter;

(2) empower the director or his designee to fix, establish, and promulgate any uniform statistical plan necessary or appropriate to obtain all automobile insurance loss and loss adjustment expense experience, other expense experience, and all other appropriate statistical and financial data from insurers, rating organizations, and advisory organizations engaged in an automobile insurance business in this State to the end that the department shall promulgate the risk classification and territorial plans to be used by all insurers of automobile insurance in this State and in order that the director or his designee may test the risk and territorial differentials previously established against the most recently available loss experience;

(3) provide that investment income accruing to automobile insurers is taken into consideration in the approval of rates or premium charges and in the determination of any net loss incurred by the South Carolina Reinsurance Facility and to make provision for the securing by the department of all necessary or appropriate financial data for purposes of ascertaining and determining the investment income and the profits from realized and unrealized capital gains of each automobile insurer doing business in this State;

(4) provide for reasonable competition for commercial property and casualty insurers of insureds who make large purchases of insurance.

Nothing in this chapter is intended to prohibit or discourage reasonable competition.

(b) This chapter must be liberally interpreted to carry into effect the purposes of this chapter.

HISTORY: Former 1976 Code Section 38-43-10 [1947 (45) 322; 1952 Code Section 37-651; 1962 Code Section 37-651] recodified as Section 38-73-10 by 1987 Act No. 155, Section 1; 1989 Act No. 148, Section 6; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 783; 2000 Act No. 235, Section 5.