Latest California Headlines
All the headlines from our California Topic Page, ordered by recency.
AIG Settles, Will Pay California Life Beneficiaries $25-$30M
Oct 22 2012 // AIG Insurance Co. will pay an estimated $25 to $30 million owed to California beneficiaries of life insurance policies, and an $11 million settlement payment. California Controller John Chiang began auditing AIG’s...
California Groups Sue EPA Over Vehicle Fees For Smog
Oct 22 2012 // California environmental groups have filed a lawsuit protesting a decision to combat San Joaquin Valley smog by increasing automobile registration fees instead of fining industrial polluters. The lawsuit filed Friday in...
Leavitt Group Names Milazzo in Northern California
Oct 22 2012 // The Leavitt Group’s Bay Area office named Trisha Milazzo as a consultant in the employee benefits division. Milazzo has more than 10 years’ experience in the employee benefits field, with expertise in human...
Calif. Rating Bureau Drops Workers’ Comp Advisory Rates
Oct 22 2012 // After a review of a workers’ compensation overhaul bill signed in September by Gov. Jerry Brown, the Workers’ Compensation Rating Bureau submitted a filing in early October to lower the pure premium advisory...
California Legislature not Hesitant to Act on Insurance Issues
Oct 22 2012 // Dysfunctional. Inefficient, Ineffective. Slow. Partisan. Irrelevant. These are terms that regularly appear on editorial pages and political blogs to describe the California Legislature. It is true that when the Legislature...
Report: Calif. Workers’ Comp Impacted by Recession, Reform, Medical
Oct 22 2012 // By Don Jergler A report out this month from the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute rates California’s workers’ comp system against 15 other states, and the report details several key improvements to...
Father and Daughter in Central Calif. Workers’ Comp Fraud Must Repay Over $600K
Oct 22 2012 // Jerry Buffington, 69, and Cynthia Russell, 47, pled guilty in Kern County Superior Court to one count each of workers’ compensation insurance premium fraud and eight counts each of tax evasion and were ordered to pay...
Calif. State Fund Board: Drop Rates 7%
Oct 22 2012 // California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund’s board has voted for a 7 percent decrease in its 2013 rates, a move that reflects State Fund’s anticipated savings from a workers’ compensation reform...
EPIC Names Dunn VP of Workers’ Comp Claims in Central California
Oct 19 2012 // Edgewood Partners Insurance Center named Joe Dunn vice president of workers’ compensation claims in its Fresno, Calif. office. Dunn will be responsible for workers’ comp claims advocacy, and he will work with...
California City Seeks to Cut Asthma Rate via ‘Social Impact’ Bond Issue
Oct 19 2012 // The city of Fresno, Calif., will be the first municipality in the United States to see whether “social impact bonds,” an innovative security that promotes a societal benefit, can be used to tackle a major...
‘Big One’ Looms in Minds of Experts Before California ShakeOut
Oct 18 2012 // A day before more than 9 million people in California took part in a massive nationwide earthquake drill on Thursday, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones stood in a room full of risk professionals in the San...
Conservation Groups Sue California Agency Over Fracking
Oct 18 2012 // Conservation groups are suing California’s oil and gas drilling regulators over hydraulic fracturing, charging officials with failing to properly study the practice’s environmental impacts. The lawsuit filed...
California Regulators Probe CVS Drug Refills Policy
Oct 18 2012 // California regulators are investigating reports that CVS Caremark Corp. refilled prescriptions without patient consent, or insurance approval. The Los Angeles Times reported customers in California and other states...
SullivanCurtisMonroe Adds Warren in Southern California
Oct 18 2012 // SullivanCurtisMonroe named Christopher Warren as a property casualty consultant in its Irvine, Calif. office. Warren joins SCM from Georgetown Insurance Service Inc., where he was a business development associate. He has...
Leavitt Group Promotes Niebuhr and Bergan to SVPs in Northern California
Oct 18 2012 // The Leavitt Group promoted Mark Niebuhr to senior vice president over the Captive and Alternative Risk Consulting Group and Bill Bergan vice president over the Construction & Surety Practice Group. Both posts are in...
California Labor Commissioner Files $1.6 Million Suit Seeking Wages for Ag Workers
Oct 16 2012 // California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su filed a $1.6 million lawsuit in Monterey County Superior Court on Tuesday against a Greenfield farm labor contractor, Salvador Zavala Chavez, dba Zavala Farms, for multiple...
Corrosion Linked To 2011 Chevron Refinery Fire in California
Oct 16 2012 // Corrosion that went unchecked – the suspected cause of a fire at Chevron Corp.’s Richmond, Calif. refinery in August – has been linked to a fire at the plant in October 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle is...
Southern California Worker Dies in Tuna Plant Oven
Oct 15 2012 // A worker died in an oven on Thursday at a Southern California plant that produces Bumble Bee tuna. Jose Melena, 62, was cooked to death in a steam oven at the Bumble Bee Foods processing plant in Santa Fe Springs, Calif....
Fireman’s Fund Names Bethune VP in Northern California
Oct 15 2012 // Novato, Calif.-based Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. named Travis Bethune vice president of distribution management and services leader. Bethune will provide strategic and operational direction for the distribution and...
Vice Mayor of California Town, an Insurance Broker, Convicted of Embezzlement
Oct 15 2012 // The vice mayor of a small Contra Costa County, California, city faces an uncertain future after he was found guilty of felony embezzlement of insurance premiums. Clayton Vice Mayor Joe Medrano is also an insurance broker...
