Latest California Headlines

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

People – West

Apr 20 2015 // Hub International Insurance Services Inc. has promoted Gay Catherine Chung to senior vice president and client director and Arturo Perez-Reyes to senior vice president and cyber-group leader of the executive liability...

Arthur J. Gallagher Acquires Madison Risk & Insurance Services in California

Apr 17 2015 // Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired Madison Risk & Insurance Services in Huntington Beach, Calif. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Madison is a retail insurance broker providing property/casualty and risk...

Bill Giving California Agents Access to Vehicle Records Passes Committee

Apr 17 2015 // A bill that would direct the California Department of Motor Vehicles to give insurance agents and brokers better access to motor vehicle records was unanimously approved by the Assembly Transportation Committee. Assembly...

CDI: True Religion Subcontractor Underreported $78M in Payroll

Apr 16 2015 // The owners of sewing companies subcontracted by True Religion Brand Jeans were arrested this week on 18 felony counts of workers’ compensation insurance fraud totaling more than $11 million in losses. Businesses Sung...

All Risks Names Campbell Senior Underwriter in California

Apr 16 2015 // All Risks Ltd. has named Robert Campbell a senior underwriter in California. As a part of the national specialty programs unit, Campbell will be responsible for underwriting large workers’ compensation accounts for...

Ascension Acquires Belvedere Pacific in California

Apr 15 2015 // Ascension Insurance Inc. has acquired Belvedere Pacific Insurance Services in Corte Madera, Calif. Belvedere Pacific is a full-service employee benefits and insurance brokerage. Belvedere Pacific Principal Michael Stallone...

Pacific Northwest Study Says More Could Survive Tsunami if They Can Just Walk Faster

Apr 15 2015 // About 5,500 more people could survive a major tsunami hitting the Pacific Northwest if they just walk a little faster to higher ground after roads are knocked out, a new study shows. The report published Monday in the...

California Court Cuts Damages to $2.8M in Jehovah’s Sex Abuse Case

Apr 15 2015 // An appeals court has trimmed to $2.8 million the damages awarded to a woman who said the Jehovah’s Witnesses allowed an adult member of a Northern California church to molest her when she was a child in the...

Former California Agent Charged With Scamming Elderly Church Members

Apr 13 2015 // Constance Gail Fortune, 61, was arraigned in Los Angeles Superior Court in California and charged with three felony counts of grand theft and one felony count of financial elder abuse for allegedly scamming seniors, many...

Chung and Perez-Reyes Named SVPs at Hub in California

Apr 13 2015 // Hub International Insurance Services Inc. has promoted Gay Catherine Chung to senior vice president and client director and Arturo Perez-Reyes to senior vice president and cyber-group leader of the executive liability...

California Regulators Order PG&E to Pay $1.6B for Deadly Gas Blast

Apr 13 2015 // California regulators imposed the largest penalty in the agency’s history, ordering PG&E Corp. to pay $1.6 billion for failures that led to a deadly 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in a San Francisco...

California Regulator: Utility Too Big to be Safe

Apr 10 2015 // Repeated natural-gas accidents – including a 2010 pipeline explosion that killed eight people – suggest that California’s largest power utility could be too big to operate safely, the state’s top utility...

Bill Giving California Agents Access to Vehicle Records Heads to Committee

Apr 10 2015 // A bill that would direct the California Department of Motor Vehicles to give insurance agents and brokers better access to motor vehicle records will be heard before the before the Assembly Transportation Committee on...

California Independent Agents Group Names New Associate Members

Apr 9 2015 // The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of California announced its new 2015 associate members. The new associate members join a list companies that make up the IIABCal membership ranks. They are: Heartland Payment...

Jury Finds California Woman Guilty On Multiple Counts of Insurance Fraud

Apr 8 2015 // Jill Audette, 28, of San Diego, Calif., was convicted on five felony counts of insurance fraud and leaving the scene of a collision after falsely claiming her car was stolen and involved in a hit and run collision....

California Agent Nabbed on Bogus Bond, $100K Premium Theft Charges

Apr 8 2015 // Licensed insurance agent Lars Hedegaard, 63, of Danville, Calif. was arrested on two felony counts of grand theft. Hedegaard was doing business as Westport &Associates Insurance Services Inc. when he allegedly issued...

Nearly 500K License Applications in California Under AB60

Apr 7 2015 // California received nearly a half-million applications for driver’s licenses from immigrants in the country illegally in the three months since a new law took effect. Department of Motor Vehicles Director Jean...

Former California Agent Convicted of Stealing School Employee Identities

Apr 7 2015 // Magaly Morales, 51, a former life insurance agent, has been sentenced to three years and four months in state prison for stealing information from school district employees in 13 California counties. Morales last week...

WCIRB Submits Lower Mid-year Filing to California Department of Insurance

Apr 6 2015 // The California Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau on Monday submitted a July 1 pure premium rate filing to the California Department of Insurance proposing advisory rates that average $2.46 per $100 of...

LP Insurance in California Names Cheta Workers Comp Consultant

Apr 6 2015 // LP Insurance Services Inc. has named Shalila Cheta as a workers’ compensation consultant in it risk management services division in California. Cheta has more than 20 years of experience in California workers’...