Latest California Headlines

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

People Moves: BenefitMall Adds Perea to Northern California Team

Feb 12 2024 // BenefitMall named Carmen Perea as sales executive for Northern California. Perea has more than two decades of industry experience. Before joining BenefitMall in December 2023, Carmen worked as an account executive at...

Venbrook in California Expands Student Insurance

Feb 12 2024 // Venbrook Group LLC and Student Insurance announced the expansion of their accident coverage program for student-athletes attending universities in California. The Student Athlete Insurance Network is a partnership with...

AM Best Says Losses from California Storms Largely Uninsured, Underinsured

Feb 9 2024 // The economic losses from the latest round of California storms will be significant, with many of these losses may not be insured because only 2% of California residents have purchased flood insurance, David Blades,...

Global Warming Exceeded Benchmark Over 12-Month Period for First Time on Record

Feb 9 2024 // Global warming exceeded temperatures of 1.5 degrees C over a 12-month period for the first time in record keeping. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released its findings in its Global Climate...

Construction Insurtech Shepherd in California Raises $13.5M in Series A Funding

Feb 9 2024 // San Francisco, California-based insurtech Shepherd announced it raised a $13.5 million Series A funding round led by Costanoa Ventures with participation from Intact Ventures, Era Ventures, Greenlight Re and Spark...

People Moves: Across American Names Barr CFO/CTO; Sobel Joins Aspire in California

Feb 9 2024 // Barr Named CFO/CTO at Across America Insurance Leah Barr joined commercial transportation insurance wholesaler Across America Insurance, headquartered in Riverside, Calif., as chief financial and technology officer. A...

Founder of AgencyPoint in California Says Many Agencies Put Accounting on Backburner

Feb 8 2024 // Many small- to mid-sized agencies aren’t putting much thought into accounting, relegating the important function to the backburner by opting to use local accountants, agency management systems that may not be...

CoreLogic: California Storms Put 543K Homes at Risk of Flash Flood Damage

Feb 6 2024 // CoreLogic estimated that across the greater Los Angeles area, nearly 543,000 single- and multifamily homes with a combined reconstruction cost value (RCV) of more than $258 billion are at risk of flash flood...

SpaceX Accused of Sexual Harassment as Fight With Ex-Employees Intensifies

Feb 6 2024 // Executives at Elon Musk’s SpaceX discriminated against women, joked about sexual harassment and fired workers for raising concerns, seven former employees allege in California civil rights complaints viewed by...

West Coast Insurers Warned of Billions in Losses Over Climate-Linked Investments

Feb 6 2024 // A new report warns insurance companies could face billions of dollars in losses if they stay on the current course of investments that contribute to climate change, at “a scale exceeding some of the worst wildfires...

SpaceX Accused of Sexual Harassment as Fight With Ex-Employees Intensifies

Feb 6 2024 // Executives at Elon Musk’s SpaceX discriminated against women, joked about sexual harassment and fired workers for raising concerns, seven former employees allege in California civil rights complaints viewed by...

People Moves: Venbrook in California Names Lais Chief Marketing Officer

Feb 6 2024 // Venbrook Group, LLC, based in Woodland Hills, Calif., named Brooke Norton Lais chief marketing officer. Lais will define the strategic direction and development of the company’s marketing, planning, and communication...

AccuWeather: Preliminary Damage and Loss from California Storms $9-$11B

Feb 5 2024 // The preliminary total damage and economic loss from the intense storms and record rainfall in California this week will be between $9 billion and $11 billion, according to AccuWeather estimates released on Monday. The...

Driverless Cars Covered 5x More Test Miles in California in 2023

Feb 5 2024 // Completely driverless vehicles traveled nearly 3.3 million miles in California last year, over five times the previous year’s total, even as concerns rose in the wake of a Cruise robotaxi accident, state data on...

Hub Launches High Net Worth Excess Wildfire Program in California

Feb 5 2024 // HUB International launched a new program to address the need for enhanced wildfire coverage of high value homes that will be offered exclusively by HUB Private Client to address the insurance and risk management needs of...

Declarations

Feb 5 2024 // Natural Catastrophe Challenges “We continue to witness an increase in the severity and high-impact frequency of natural catastrophe events. These effects bring multifaceted and complex challenges to the re/insurance...

No Sugarcoating: Availability Before Affordability, California Regulator Says

Feb 5 2024 // If the old adage “As California goes, so goes the nation” is true, then 2024 will be another year of industry retooling as insurers and regulators set a path for the future of the U.S. P/C property insurance...

Family of Slain California College Student Sues for Wrongful Death Nearly 30 Years Later

Feb 5 2024 // The family of a California college student who vanished nearly three decades ago sued the school, alleging it caused Kristin Smart’s murder through negligence. Smart, then 19, disappeared from California Polytechnic...

Uninsured California Subcontractor Charged with 30 Felony Counts

Feb 5 2024 // The California Department of Insurance is urging business owners to verify the insurance coverage for any subcontractor or vendor they do business with after trucking company owner and operator Raymond Youash, 37, of...

California Reaches $1M Settlement with Cheesecake Factory, Janitorial Contractors

Feb 5 2024 // The California Labor Commissioner’s Office reached a $1 million settlement against the Cheesecake Factory Restaurants Inc. and two janitorial contractors for reportedly underpaying 589 janitorial workers. The...