Cite as: 510 U. S. 86 (1993)
Syllabus
ing unqualified exemptions from the statute's reach, Congress specifically instructed, by the words of limitation it used in § 1101(b)(2)(B), that the guaranteed benefit policy exclusion be closely contained: The deposits over which Hancock is exercising authority or control under GAC 50 must have been obtained "solely" by reason of the issuance of "an insurance policy or contract" that provides for benefits "the amount of which is guaranteed," and even then the exemption applies only "to the extent" that GAC 50 provides for such benefits. Pp. 94-97. (b) The Court rejects Hancock's contention that, because Congress reserved to the States primary responsibility for regulating the insurance industry, ERISA's requirement that a fiduciary act "solely in the interest of . . . participants and beneficiaries and . . . for the exclusive purpose of . . . providing benefits," § 1104(a)(1)(A)(i) (emphasis added), must yield to conflicting state-law requirements that an insurer managing general account assets consider the interest of, and maintain equity among, all of its contractholders, creditors, and shareholders. The McCarran-Ferguson Act—which provides, among other things, that no federal "Act . . . shall be construed to . . . supersede any [state] law . . . enacted . . . for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance . . . unless such Act specifically relates to the business of insurance"—does not support Hancock's contention, since ERISA and the guaranteed benefit policy provision obviously and specifically "relat[e] to the business of insurance." Moreover, although state laws concerning an insurer's management of general account assets "regulat[e] insurance" in the words of ERISA's saving clause—which instructs that ERISA "shall not be construed to exempt . . . any person from any [state] law . . . which regulates insurance," § 1144(b)(2)(A)—state laws regulating general accounts also can "relate to [an] employee benefit plan" under ERISA's encompassing preemption clause, which directs that the statute "shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they . . . relate to any employee benefit plan," § 1144(a). There is no solid basis for believing that Congress, when it designed ERISA, intended fundamentally to alter traditional preemption analysis. Thus, ERISA leaves room for complementary or dual federal and state regulation, and calls for federal supremacy when the two regimes cannot be harmonized or accommodated. Pp. 97-101. (c) Hancock is an ERISA fiduciary with respect to the free funds it holds under GAC 50. To determine whether a contract qualifies as a guaranteed benefit policy, each component of the contract bears examination. A component fits within the guaranteed benefit policy exclusion only if it allocates investment risk to the insurer. Cf., e. g., SEC v. United Benefit Life Ins. Co., 387 U. S. 202. Such an allocation is present when the insurer provides a genuine guarantee of an aggregate amount
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