Declarations

No Penalty

“A consumer should not be penalized for reporting damage. I don’t want insurers non-renewing policyholders whose homes were damaged by flooding, especially when claims reporting is mandated by FEMA for a consumer to be eligible for benefits.”

—Georgia Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine in a directive to homeowners insurance companies ordering them not to penalize policyholders who’ve had flood damage. Under Georgia law, insurance companies are prohibited from non-renewing homeowners coverage for two or fewer claims within 36 months, provided such claims are not attributable to negligent or intentional acts of the insured.

Foxx Fear

“I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.”

—Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, during debate in Congress over healthcare reform.

Balance

“You can do both. You can enforce immigration laws and you can protect the workers who are being victimized by unscrupulous employers.”

—Julie Martinez Ortega, American Rights at Work research director, citing a labor report that workplace immigration raids during the Bush administration interfered with ongoing labor investigations and allowed employers to exploit workers who complained about conditions on the job.

Rate Trends

“Rate trends are encouraging across our portfolio. However, the recession has reduced exposures, putting downward pressure on premium volume.”

—Thomas F. Motamed, chairman and chief executive officer of CNA Financial Corp., explaining he was pleased with the performance of CNA’s specialty lines segment and will look to improve profitability in the standard lines segment. CNA Financial Corp.’s third quarter 2009 results included net operating income of $331 million and net income of $263 million along with a combined ratio for property/ casualty operations of 101.0%.

Too Big

“We have to find a way of limiting firms from becoming too big to fail so they don’t capture the government.”

—Rep. Paul Kanjorski, chairman of the financial services subcommittee on capital markets, who said the government should have the authority to break up or reconstruct financial firms before they become “too big to fail.”