Latest Business Insurance Headlines

All the headlines from our Business Insurance Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Survey: Tennessee Small Businesses Struggling with Health Insurance Costs

Jul 27 2009 // With Congress debating how to reform Athe nation’s health care system, a new survey report reveals that 79 percent of Tennessee’s small business owners, including the self-employed, are struggling to afford...

Employers Holdings To Announce Q2 Earnings on August 7

Jul 24 2009 // Reno, Nev.-based Employers Holdings Inc., a company whose subsidiaries are specialty providers of workers’ compensation insurance focused on small businesses, will review the company’s second quarter and...

Progressive Introduces Any Auto Commercial Liability Endorsement

Jul 23 2009 // Progressive introduced a new commercial auto endorsements that might limit an agent’s errors and omissions exposure, the insurer says. Imagine this scenario — a customer has commercial auto insurance for his...

Survey: Illinois Small Businesses Crushed by Rising Health Costs

Jul 22 2009 // Illinois small business owners are being crushed by rising health care costs, and feel left out of the current health care debate in Washington, according to a report recently released by Illinois Public Interest Research...

Marsh Issues Business Risk, Insurance Advice for Overseas Travelers

Jul 20 2009 // In the wake of the fatal bombings in Indonesia, PMarsh has issued a reminder to companies with employees who travel overseas of the need to have robust travel policies and emergency procedures in place to deal with crisis...

Employers Direct Stops Writing Workers’ Comp Insurance in California

Jul 20 2009 // Citing the strain of escalating medical costs on the workers’ compensation system, increasingly intense price competition, and the uncertainty over the sustainability of the 2003-2004 legislative reforms due to...

<em>Analysis:</em> U.S. Small Business Funding Dry, Getting Drier

Jul 14 2009 // U.S. small businesses, already facing the toughest credit conditions since the 1980s, may soon find things are about to get tougher. Concerns over the future of CIT Corp. — a major lender to small businesses —...

North Carolina May Hike Penalties for Violations of Workplace Safety

Jul 10 2009 // A plan to increase maximum monetary penalties for businesses that break North Carolina’s child labor and some workplace safety laws is one vote away from final passage. The Senate voted unanimously this week to...

North Dakota Employers’ Workers’ Comp Bills Likely to Rise

Jul 6 2009 // Eight months after North Dakota voters gave Gov. John Hoeven the final word on state workers’ compensation rates, employers’ insurance bills are likely to rise due to the recent bleak market for...

California Employers Oppose Fees on Workers’ Comp Premiums

Jul 2 2009 // Members of the Workers’ Compensation Action Network (WCAN) have launched a campaign to oppose more than $60 million in new annual workers’ compensation assessments being proposed in California. The new...

Employers Direct Stops Writing Workers’ Comp Insurance in California

Jul 1 2009 // Citing the strain of escalating medical costs on the workers’ compensation system, increasingly intense price competition, and the uncertainty over the sustainability of the 2003-2004 legislative reforms due to...

Pinnacol Assurance Named One of 50 Best Employers to Work For

Jun 30 2009 // Denver-based workers’ compensation insurer Pinnacol Assurance has been recognized as one of the top 50 best companies to work for in America by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Great Place to...

Wisconsin’s Capitol Insurance Adds Commercial Auto Coverage

Jun 25 2009 // Capitol Insurance Companies (Capitol) based in Middleton, Wis., has launched a commercial automobile insurance product. The company said the product is available for appointed insurance agents and brokers through a newly...

New Florida Commercial Insurer CastlePoint Assigned Ratings

Jun 24 2009 // A.M. Best Co. has assigned a financial strength rating of A- (Excellent) and issuer credit rating of “a-” to CastlePoint Florida Insurance Co. (CFIC) of Fort Lauderdale. The rating firm said the outlook...

North Dakota Employers’ Workers’ Comp Bills Likely to Rise

Jun 23 2009 // Eight months after North Dakota voters gave Gov. John Hoeven the final word on state workers’ compensation rates, employers’ insurance bills are likely to rise as a consequence of the recent bleak market for...

Texas Court: Employer Not Liable for Fatigued Worker’s Off Duty Activity

Jun 23 2009 // The Supreme Court of Texas has ruled that employers generally do not owe a duty to third parties for the activities of off duty employees that occur away from the work site, even if those activities ultimately lead to a...

Illinois to Subsidize Health Insurance for Laid Off Small Business Workers

Jun 22 2009 // Gov. Pat Quinn has signed legislation designed to make health insurance coverage for workers laid off from small businesses more affordable. Under federal legislation, people who formerly worked at firms of 20 employees or...

Employers Holdings To Be Added to S&P 600

Jun 19 2009 // Reno, Nev.-based Employers Holdings Inc. announced Standard & Poor’s will add it to the S&P 600 SmallCap Index. The S&P 600 is considered the preferred small capitalization-market index in the United...

Lower Premiums Cut Total Cost of Risk for Commercial Insureds by 9.4%

Jun 19 2009 // Despite the economic turmoil and the second worst year for insured natural catastrophe losses, the total cost of risk paid by businesses dropped in 2008 by 9.4 percent per $1,000 of revenue. The drop was largely...

Ohio High Court: Employer not Eligible for Work Comp Benefits Refund

Jun 17 2009 // The Supreme Court of Ohio has ruled that a double dismissal of a workers’ compensation appeal does not entitle an employer to a refund of compensation benefits from the state. Specifically, according to the Ohio high...