Latest California Headlines
All the headlines from our California Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Study: Workers’ Comp Reform Bill Increases Costs $300M
Aug 27 2012 // A workers’ compensation reform bill was officially introduced on Monday, and the same day the California Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau issued a study saying the bill could produce a savings of...
Workers’ Comp Poll Wants Your Opinion on California
Aug 27 2012 // Negotiating parties have finally come to terms on wording for a bill to reform California’s workers’ compensation system. The bill, Senate Bill 863, was introduced late last week. It resulted from a meeting...
How Apple Outsmarted Samsung in Patent Dispute
Aug 27 2012 // In August 2010, just a few months after Samsung Electronics launched its Galaxy smartphone, a team of Apple Inc. lawyers flew to South Korea. Apple’s late co-founder, Steve Jobs, had already told Samsung executives...
California Health Rates Initiative Qualifies for 2014 Ballot
Aug 24 2012 // The California Secretary of State announced on Thursday that a ballot initiative to require health insurance companies to publicly justify and get approval for rate increases before they take effect has qualified for the...
Bill to Update Holding Company Act Passes Calif. Legislature
Aug 23 2012 // The California State Legislature has passed Senate Bill 1448, which updates California’s Insurance Holding Company System Regulatory Act. The bill was authored by Senate Insurance Committee Chairman Ron Calderon,...
Calif. School District Sued Over Sex Ed Program
Aug 23 2012 // A school district in California’s Central Valley is putting teens’ health at risk by failing to provide students with information about condoms and contraception, two parents and a coalition of groups said in a...
Poll: Little Faith for Lasting Workers’ Comp Reforms in Calif.
Aug 22 2012 // People overwhelmingly believe workers’ compensation premiums will rise if no reforms come out of a bill currently in the works in state Legislature to increase benefits for injured workers and reduce waste in the...
Calif. Workers’ Comp Losses, Expenses Reach Over $12B
Aug 21 2012 // A report issued on Tuesday by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute shows workers’ comp insurers’ loss and expense payments rose to nearly $12.5 billion in 2011, an increase of over $1...
Bill to Align California with Dodd-Frank Passes Legislature
Aug 21 2012 // The California State Legislature has passed Senate Bill 1216, which aligns California law with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, with unanimous support. SB 1216 was authored and carried by Sen....
You Tell Us: Can California’s Workers’ Comp System Be Fixed?
Aug 21 2012 // How do you contain upwardly spiraling costs, battle growing use and prescription of opioids, fight fraud, de-incentivize bad actors, all while sailing directly into political headwinds flowing from all the compass...
Calif. Sues Doctor Over Aggressive Billing Tactics
Aug 20 2012 // The California attorney general’s office is suing a Los Angeles County doctor over her practice of refusing to accept lower insurance company reimbursements and instead billing patients for the full amount. The...
Bondholders, Insurers Challenge San Bernardino Bankruptcy
Aug 20 2012 // Bondholders and bond insurers are challenging the eligibility of San Bernardino, California, to file for bankruptcy protection, claiming the city provided no financial information to its creditors. Their court filings...
Calif. Workers’ Comp Deal Gains Support of Government
Aug 17 2012 // A workers’ compensation proposal for California is getting the backing of the Department of Industrial Relations as well as seeming endorsement from the governor’s office, although with only two weeks left in...
Agency Outlines Ways California Firms Can Control WC Insurance Costs
Aug 17 2012 // Insurance agency Barney & Barney has outlined a series of steps to help California’s small- to mid-sized employers control the rising cost of workers comp insurance following Wednesday’s decision by the...
Auto Insurance Driver Tracking Hits Privacy Wall in California
Aug 17 2012 // California is turning into a battleground for technology that allows auto insurers to track their customers’ driving behavior and offer them lower premiums, but that privacy advocates reject as an excessive intrusion...
Workers’ Comp Reform Could Impact WCIRB’s 12.6% Pure Premium
Aug 16 2012 // The Workers’ Compensation Rating Bureau’s Governing Committee has unanimously voted to authorize the WCIRB to make a Jan.1, 2013 filing recommending an average advisory pure premium rate that is 12.6 percent...
General Star Expands Admitted Real Estate Product to California Agents
Aug 15 2012 // General Star Management Co. has made its admitted professional liability coverage for real estate agents available in California. Underwritten by General Star’s Professional E&O Division, the new offering is...
Calif. Refinery Fire Site Too Dangerous For Investigators
Aug 15 2012 // Federal and state investigators are trying to determine how to safely enter the area where a fire broke out in a Chevron Corp. refinery last week so they can examine a failed pipe blamed for the blaze, which the company...
Lawyers Throw Workers’ Comp Deal on the Rocks
Aug 14 2012 // A highly sheltered workers’ comp reform proposal being quietly passed around California’s capitol has the potential to make some noise when and if it ever gets introduced. The general consensus among those...
Arkansas, California Teen Golfers Are Trusted Choice National Champs
Aug 14 2012 // Trusted Choice announced that Summer Roachell of Conway, Ark. and Austin Smotherman of Loomis, Calif., won the girls and boys divisions, respectively, at the recent 44nd Annual Trusted Choice Big “I” National...
