Latest California Headlines
All the headlines from our California Topic Page, ordered by recency.
California State Fund Receives $153,000 in Fraud Case
Dec 10 2007 // A San Diego businessman was ordered to pay $153,779 in restitution to California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund as part of his conviction on workers’ compensation fraud. Marco Rangel pleaded guilty to one...
House Passes Bill to Create National Registry of Convicted Arsonists
Dec 7 2007 // Two House lawmakers from fire-struck California won approval this week for legislation to set up a national registry to track convicted arsonists. The bill, which was passed by voice vote, requires convicted arsonists to...
Consumer Group Challenges Farmers Insurance’s California Homeowners Rate Increase
Dec 7 2007 // A California consumer group is challenging Farmers Insurance Co.’s request for a rate increase of 6.9 percent. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR), in a petition filed Monday with the state...
California Court Rules on Age Discrimination in Workers’ Comp Claim
Dec 7 2007 // The California Court of Appeals in Sacramento has, in an unanimous decision, ruled that a disabled employee’s age cannot be used to reduce workers’ compensation benefits. In January 2003, while working as a...
California State Fund Names McCkissock Operations Manager
Dec 7 2007 // Mark McKissock has been promoted to operations manager of state contract services claims for the California State Compensation Insurance Fund’s north region. State Contract Services is a third-party administrator of...
USGS Finds Southern California Ash May Pose Health Problems
Dec 6 2007 // Ash from October and November’s southern California wildfires may pose problems to health and the environment, according to preliminary results from a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study released to the Multi-Agency...
Ketcham Named Program Manager for Calif. State Fund
Dec 4 2007 // Diane Ketcham has been named program manager for the California State Compensation Insurance Fund’s Project Services Office (PSO), which supports the development and implementation of State Fund projects and...
Storms Threaten Southern California Wildfire Areas with Mudslides
Dec 3 2007 // Southern California’s weather turned from dangerously dry to extremely wet Friday as storms brought the threat of mudslides and flash floods to areas burned by recent wildfires, causing evacuation orders. Residents...
Catastrophic Events Raise Business Interruption Coverage Questions
Dec 2 2007 // Considering the number of people who lived and worked in the area, the destruction of the World Trade Center complex was the functional equivalent of obliterating a small- to medium-sized city. Several recent and...
Malibu, Calif., Faces Wildfires, Again
Dec 2 2007 // For the second time in a little more than a month, residents in Malibu, Calif., faced destruction caused by wildfires. The coastal community had been recovering from October’s 4,565-acre Canyon Fire that destroyed...
S&P Report Examines Calif. Earthquake Insurance
Dec 2 2007 // The Golden State got a jolt on Oct. 30 with a 5.6 magnitude earthquake just outside of San Jose. An article published by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, “Is California’s Earthquake Insurance...
Deregulation Pushing Banks Into Insurance Industry
Dec 2 2007 // As the financial services industry has evolved since deregulation, there has been a rise in “bancassurance: the joint effort of banks and insurers to provide insurance services to the bank’s customer...
Declarations
Dec 2 2007 // On Agents and Brokers “Let me be clear about how I feel about agents and brokers. The agents and brokers are in the trenches every day, fighting for consumers. They’re the ones that have to deal with the...
Calif. Sues Manufacturers of Toys With Lead
Dec 2 2007 // California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Los Angeles City Attorney Rockard J. Delgadillo have sued 20 companies for manufacturing or selling toys with “unlawful quantities of lead.” Commenting on the...
People
Dec 2 2007 // Kyle Stevens was elected president and CEO of Western Security Surplus Insurance Brokers based in Pasadena, Calif. Stevens was promoted to chief operating officer in 2005 and was charged with overseeing all offices of the...
From Insurance Consumer to Commissioner
Dec 2 2007 // While the position of California Insurance Commissioner is elected and there are already rumblings that he’d make a good gubernatorial candidate in 2010, current California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner says...
Safeco Estimates Calif. Wildfire Losses at $35 Million
Dec 2 2007 // Frank Santoya, a member of the California Fire Office of the State Fire Marshall, walks through the rubble as he surveys the fire damage in the Rancho Barnardo neighborhood of San Diego on Oct. 30, 2007 (AP Photo/Rick...
Calif. Commissioner Files Uninsured Motorist Ballot Initiative
Dec 2 2007 // Proving rumors true, California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has filed a draft ballot initiative with the state Attorney General’s office designed to reduce the number of uninsured motorists on state roads...
Calif. State Fund Holds Line on 2008 Workers’ Comp Rates
Dec 2 2007 // California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund has announced the filing of its Jan. 1, 2008, rating plan, making no change in the average collectible rate level. SCIF held the line on rates despite the Workers’...
Business Moves
Dec 2 2007 // Hull & Co., McFall General Hull & Co. Inc. has acquired the assets of McFall General Agency Inc., which has offices in Portland, Ore., and Gig Harbor, Wash. Bob McFall, who founded MGA in 1981 and serves as...
