Latest California Headlines

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

California Fault Could Yield M7.4 Quake, Study Shows

Mar 9 2017 // An earthquake fault running from San Diego Bay to Los Angeles is capable of producing a magnitude-7.4 earthquake that could affect some of the region’s most densely populated areas, according to a new study. The...

California Legislators Consider Self-Driving Vehicles and the Need for Prop 103 Reform

Mar 9 2017 // Proposition 103—California’s restrictive regulatory regime for insurance—may need a few tweaks as fewer and fewer cars on the road have human drivers. During a March 8 informational hearing, members of the...

Stone Creek Adds Nava as Personal Lines Producer in California

Mar 8 2017 // Miguel Nava has been hired at Stone Creek Insurance Agency in their Lafayette, Calif. headquarters as a personal lines producer. Nava will also serve as chair of the language department, advancing Stone Creek’s...

Nation’s First Driverless Shuttles Make Debut at California Business Park

Mar 8 2017 // The first driverless shuttles in the nation to be operating on public roads made a debut at a San Francisco Bay Area business park. The East Bay Times reporte the shuttles get around using lasers on all four corners, GPS...

Leavitt Group Hires Stephens and Terpstra in California

Mar 8 2017 // United Insurance Services has added KJ Stephens and Adam Terpstra to its Granite Bay, Calif. location. Stephens is an employee benefits agent and Terpstra is a commercial agent. Terpstra specializes in member-owned group...

Autonomous Bus Without Back-Up Driver Coming to California Road

Mar 7 2017 // A pair of $250,000 autonomous buses began driving around an empty San Francisco Bay Area parking lot this week in preparation to move onto a local public road in California’s first pilot program for a self-driving...

Humans to Blame for More Than 80% of U.S. Wildfires

Mar 7 2017 // Humans have been the culprits behind hundreds of thousands of wildfires in recent decades, and they will probably make things a whole lot worse in coming years. Research from the University of Colorado Boulder finds that...

NorCal Insurance in California Joins Leavitt Group

Mar 6 2017 // NorCal Insurance in California has merged operations with Leavitt United Insurance Services. Rich Hansen remains with the agency as a commercial agent. In addition to servicing his commercial clients, Hansen will mentor...

California’s Troubled Oroville Dam Gets Power Plant Restart

Mar 6 2017 // Crews began restarting a power plant at the base of Oroville Dam, allowing them to release water from the Northern California lake without having to send it over a badly damaged spillway, officials said. The move is a...

Suit Filed in California Says Kona Co. Dupes Those Seeking Hawaii-Made Beer

Mar 6 2017 // A class-action lawsuit says Kona Brewing Co. leads customers to believe they are buying made-in-Hawaii beer. The lawsuit filed in California is against Craft Brew Alliance, which advertises, markets, distributes and sells...

People

Mar 6 2017 // Bruce Carnegie-Brown will become the chairman of Lloyd’s following a meeting of the Council of Lloyd’s where his appointment as successor to John Nelson was approved unanimously. His appointment also was...

California DIR Suspends 7 Workers’ Comp Medical Providers for Fraud

Mar 6 2017 // California’s Department of Industrial Relations and its Division of Workers’ Compensation has suspended seven medical providers from participating in the state’s workers’ comp system. The providers...

Who Self-Insures for Workers’ Compensation in California?

Mar 6 2017 // Workers’ compensation liability is one of the main commercial lines in the U.S. property/casualty market. In order to manage this loss exposure, employers have two choices: they can either buy market insurance or...

California’s Central Coast Accounting for More of State’s Comp Claims, Report Shows

Mar 6 2017 // California’s Central Coast has been accounting for more of the state’s workers’ compensation claims recently, a report issued in late February shows. The California Workers’ Compensation Institute...

Later Last Call Times Proposed by California Lawmaker

Mar 6 2017 // Closing times at bars in California could go later if proposed legislation there gets passed. The bill proposed by state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents San Francisco, would let municipalities set their own...

Billionaire from California Donates $5M to Help San Jose Flood Relief Efforts

Mar 3 2017 // A California billionaire has donated $5 million for flood relief efforts in San Jose. Kieu Hoang is a one-time refugee from Vietnam who built a fortune in medical products. He presented a check to city officials this week....

Nationwide Says Extreme Weather Brings Bigger Claims, Need for Disaster Plans

Mar 2 2017 // More extreme weather has led to more extreme insurance claims in the U.S. over the past few years. In a review of more than 100,000 commercial catastrophe claims during a 10-year period, Mark A. Anderson, a claims...

Hub Acquires LISSC in Southern California

Mar 2 2017 // Hub International Ltd. has acquired LISSC in Santa Ana, Calif. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. LISSC’s team will join Hub California. Angelo Maroutsos and Dennis Monahan, co-owners, and David Trevino, vice...

Debris Pile Emerges from Water Near Troubled California Dam

Mar 2 2017 // Crews worked this week to clean up dirt and debris from the base of Oroville Dam and biologists rush to save stranded fish after state officials shut off the flow of water from a damaged spillway at the Northern California...

University of California Releases Details on 113 Employee Sex Misconduct Cases

Mar 2 2017 // The University of California said it investigated 113 cases of sexual misconduct involving staff and faculty at its 10 campuses over a recent three-year period, according to hundreds of pages of internal documents released...