Cite as: 508 U. S. 491 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
The broad category of laws enacted "for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance" consists of laws that possess the "end, intention, or aim" of adjusting, managing, or controlling the business of insurance. Black's Law Dictionary 1236, 1286 (6th ed. 1990). This category necessarily encompasses more than just the "business of insurance." For the reasons expressed above, we believe that the actual performance of an insurance contract is an essential part of the "business of insurance." Because the Ohio statute is "aimed at protecting or regulating" the performance of an insurance contract, National Securities, 393 U. S., at 460, it follows that it is a law "enacted for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance," within the meaning of the first clause of § 2(b).
Our plain reading of the McCarran-Ferguson Act also com-ports with the statute's purpose. As was stated in Royal Drug, the first clause of § 2(b) was intended to further Congress' primary objective of granting the States broad regulatory authority over the business of insurance. The second clause accomplishes Congress' secondary goal, which was to carve out only a narrow exemption for "the business of insurance" from the federal antitrust laws. 440 U. S., at 218, n. 18. Cf. D. Howard, Uncle Sam versus the Insurance Commissioners: A Multi-Level Approach to Defining the "Business of Insurance" Under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 25 Willamette L. Rev. 1 (1989) (advocating an interpretation of the two clauses that would reflect their dual purposes); Note, The Definition of "Business of Insurance" Under the McCarran-Ferguson Act After Royal Drug, 80 Colum. L. Rev. 1475 (1980) (same).
Petitioners, however, also contend that the Ohio statute is not an insurance law but a bankruptcy law because it comes into play only when the insurance company has become insolvent and is in liquidation, at which point the insurance company no longer exists. We disagree. The primary purpose of a statute that distributes the insolvent insurer's assets to
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