Like those on the opposite coast, New York courts and administrative panels have recently found that Uber drivers qualify for unemployment benefits. This is a problem. Indeed, even if the courts are right as a matter of law, what’s happening …
Two years ago, the online health-insurance broker and human-resources portal Zenefits hired an insurance agent with a criminal record. Now the San Francisco Chronicle is attacking the firm for that decision. While Zenefits certainly has had some well-documented compliance problems, …
San Antonio, Texas appears to be on the verge of implementing one of America’s worst laws to regulate transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft. The current San Antonio bill—which has dozens of problems my colleague Josiah Nealey describes in …
Google has announced a truly “driverless” car that lacks a steering wheel, brakes or anything else that allows a driver to control its movements. This actually strikes me as a much bigger deal for the insurance industry than the optionally …
Ever since Congress last renewed the program in 2007, I’ve expected that reauthorizing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) would dominate Washington’s insurance debate in late 2014. I’m not so sure any more. In fact, another issue—Solvency II—seems likely to …
The Roman politician, general and renowned orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, once wrote that “custom is the best interpreter of the law.” Even today, his observations are relevant to a debate that’s about to erupt in the insurance industry. Let me …
For several years now now, a lot of people involved with insurance—me included —have been puzzling out the ways that new tobacco products like e-cigarettes and snus might impact life and health insurance markets. To date, the U.S. insurance industry …
My friend Mark Calabria at the Cato Institute has a good piece in Roll Call that makes the case for allowing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program to lapse. I’m sympathetic to him in the medium term but, given the enormous …
As an insurance guy who has been on both sides of the climate change debate (I’ve worked for organizations full of climate change skeptics and now head one that believes it’s an important public policy issue) I’ve heard just about …
Our friends at the Consumer Federation of America have issued yet another shocking new study. This one shows something that’s truly nefarious: that auto insurers use things like credit score, employment, and coverage history in determining rates. Furthermore, the CFA’s …
