Insurance Information
Mail Order Insurer
Type of insurance company that sells policies through the mail or other mass media, eliminating need for agents.

Manual Rate
A loose-leaf manual, periodically updated or revised, that contains rules, rates and other information prepared by an insurance company or rating bureau to develop premiums for insurance policies. Hard-copy manuals have been supplemented or replaced by electronic data (CD-ROMs, computer disks, electronic networks).

Manuscript Policy
An insurance policy designed or tailored for a large commercial insured; a unique coverage written at the request of a broker or a risk manager.

Marital deduction
A reduction of an estate for estate tax purposes, which is available if the decedent is survived by his or her spouse, can be as large as the administrator or executor elects so long as it does not exceed the value of qualifying property passing to the surviving spouse.

Market Price
The price at which a security can be bought or sold at any particular time.

Master Policy
An original, complete insurance policy contract that is issued by an insurer with the understanding that certificates of insurance or underlying policies will be issued to others; for example, a master group health policy is issued to an employer while certificates are given to the employees. A master policy and underlying policies may be issued to a property owner to comply with requirements of a mortgage holder.

Material Damage
Insurance against damage to a vehicle itself. It includes automobile comprehensive, collision, fire and theft. Material damage and physical damage are terms that often are used inter- changeably.

Maximum family benefit
The largest amount in Social Security benefits that will be paid to any family unit.

McCarran-Ferguson Act
Federal legislation (U.S. Code Title 15, Chapter 20) enacted in 1945 to permit the states to continue regulating the insurance business after the Supreme Court, in U.S. v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association, overruled the decision in Paul v. Virginia, declaring insurance to be interstate commerce and therefore within Congress's constitutional authority to regulate. Under the Act, insurance is exempt from some federal antitrust statutes to the extent that it is regulated by the states. The exemption primarily applies to gathering data in concert for the purpose of ratemaking. Otherwise, antitrust laws prohibit insurers from boycotting, acting coercively, restraining trade, or violating the Sherman or Clayton Acts.

Medicaid
A state medical benefit program for persons, regardless of age, whose income and resources are insufficient to pay for health care. As of January 1, 1966, federal matching funds were provided to the states under Title XIX of the Social Security Act.

Medical Examination
The examination given by a qualified physician to determine to the insurability of an applicant. A medical examination may also be used to determine whether an insured claiming disability is actually disabled.

Medical Payments Insurance
A coverage, available in various liability insurance policies, in which their insurer agrees to reimburse the insured and others, without regard for the insured's liability, for medical or funeral expenses incurred as the result of bodily injury or death by accident under specified conditions.

Medicare
A federally administered program of hospital insurance (Part A) and supplementary medical insurance (Part B) primarily for people over 65, created by 1965 amendments to the Social Security Act. It also covers people of any age with permanent kidney failure and certain other disabilities. The Health Care Financing Administration in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reimburses hospitals and physicians for services to qualified patients. Part A (hospital insurance) coverage is automatic for all eligible people and is financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees. Part B (supplementary medical insurance) is a voluntary program of government-subsidized insurance requiring participants to make premium payments.

Medigap
Private insurance purchased by Medicare participants on a voluntary basis that is designed to fill the gaps in Medicare, such as coinsurance, deductibles and noncovered services (e.g., hospital stays beyond a certain length).

Minimum Benefits
A provision that a minimum amount of annuity will be paid if the regular benefit formula produces less. This minimum is usually payable only if certain service requirements are met at retirement.

Minimum Group
The minimum number of persons required to form a group insurance program under state law; the minimum number that an insurance company requires to issue a group policy.

Miscellaneous Expenses
Expenses involving hospital care other than room, board and doctors' fees, such as lab tests, drugs and radiology. Most hospital policies limit coverage for these expenses by scheduling the amounts covered or combining them for a an aggregate limit.

Misrepresentation
A false, incorrect, improper, or incomplete statement of a material fact, made in the application for a policy.

Moral Hazard
Circumstances of morals or habits that increase the probability of a loss from an insured peril. Example: An insured previously convicted of arson.

Morbidity
The frequency of the incidence of disease, illness or sickness.

Morbidity Tables
A table showing the number of individuals exposed to the risk of illness, sickness, and disease at each age, and the actual number of individuals who incurred an illness, sickness, and disease at each age.

Mortality Table
A table that indicates the number of individuals within a specified group of individuals (males, females, airline pilots, etc.), starting at a certain age, who are expected to be alive at succeeding ages. It is used to derive the "natural premium" for an individual life policy.

Motor Vehicle Records
The record maintained by a state motor vehicle department of a driver's accidents and traffic violations.

Motor Vehicle Report
Report that lists the moving violations and accidents that a driver has had in the past several years.

Multi-Peril Policy
A package policy which provides protection against a number of separate perils. Multi-peril policies are not necessarily multiple line policies, since the combined perils may be all within one insurance line.

Multiple Employer Trust (MET)
A legal trust formed by a health benefit plan sponsor to combine a number of small, unrelated employers for the purpose of providing group medical coverage on an insured or group self-insured basis.

Mutual Insurance Company
An insurance company that has no capital stock, but is owned by its policyholders, who elect a board of directors or trustees through whom business is conducted. Any earnings belong to the policyholders and may be distributed to them as policy dividends or educed premiums.