Latest Commercial Lines Headlines

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

Missouri House Panel to Again Consider Workplace Discrimination

Apr 11 2012 // Missouri lawmakers appear poised to take up discrimination in the workplace again, in a possible attempt to get around a veto issued by Gov. Jay Nixon. Nixon, a Democrat, vetoed a measure in March that would have required...

Main Street America Rolls Out Commercial Product Line in Oklahoma

Apr 11 2012 // The Main Street America Group has introduced its commercial product line, including its main line business owners policy (Main Line BOP), to approximately 100 independent agents who represent the super-regional...

Kemper Changes Name for Specialty Business Unit

Apr 9 2012 // Kemper Corp. has changed the name of its Unitrin Specialty business to Kemper Specialty, effective April 9, 2012. The next step will be to rebrand the Unitrin Direct business in the near future, the company...

Wisconsin Governor Signs Bill Erasing Workplace Discrimination Damages

Apr 9 2012 // Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that prohibits workers from collecting damages in employment discrimination cases. The legislation eliminates compensatory and punitive damages for acts of employment...

Hastings Mutual Recognized as a Top Employer in West Michigan

Apr 3 2012 // Hastings, Mich.-based Hastings Mutual Insurance Co. announce it has been selected as one of West Michigan’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For by the Michigan Business & Professional Association (MBPA)...

Cooper Gay Promotes Hooper to Chief Commercial Officer; Hovey to CEO

Apr 3 2012 // Cooper Gay Swett & Crawford (CGSC), the global wholesale and reinsurance brokerage group, has promoted Shaun Hooper to the new role of Chief Commercial Officer, and named Sam Hovey to succeed him as CEO of Cooper Gay,...

Arkansas Clarifies Definition of Small Employer for Healthcare Issues

Mar 30 2012 // Arkansas has clarified that it will retain the current statutory definition of a small employer as being one that retains 2 to 50 employees for purposes of small group health insurance issues. The Arkansas Insurance...

Facebook, Lawmakers Warn Employers Not to Demand Passwords

Mar 25 2012 // Facebook and lawmakers have warned employers against requesting Facebook passwords while screening job applicants, a controversial practice that underscores the blurring distinction between personal and professional lives...

Study: Access to Local Underwriters Critical for Small Commercial CSRs

Mar 23 2012 // At a time when many insurance carriers are centralizing their underwriting models and interacting more through technology, a recent survey has found that agency small commercial customer service representatives and account...

Insurance Retailer GEICO Lowering Commercial Auto Rates in Texas

Mar 23 2012 // Insurance direct marketer, GEICO, has announced that it is lowering commercial auto insurance rates for business owners in Texas. Commercial insurance packages cover the cars, trucks and vans used in conducting business,...

Oklahoma Bill Targets Employers Who Intentionally Misclassify Workers

Mar 23 2012 // The Oklahoma House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make it more difficult for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors for the purpose of avoiding social security, unemployment or...

Legality of Employers Asking Job Applicants For Facebook Passwords Questioned

Mar 22 2012 // In their efforts to vet job applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person’s social networking profiles and instead are asking to log in as the user to have a look...

Cisco Enables Employers to Secure Employees’ Personal Mobile Devices

Mar 21 2012 // Cisco Systems is expanding its services to enable companies to manage and secure private mobile devices used by employees at work, aiming to benefit from the trend widely known as BYOD or Bring Your Own Device. While...

Cost Containment Tops Employer Concerns on Workers’ Comp: Survey

Mar 19 2012 // Controlling workers’ compensation costs is a top priority for employers. During the next 12 months, employers say cost containment is their number one workers’ compensation insurance concern, a new study shows....

Commercial Lines Prices Up for 4th Straight Quarter: Survey

Mar 19 2012 // Commercial insurance prices increased an aggregate 3 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, the fourth consecutive quarter during which prices for all standard commercial lines rose. Additionally, earned price...

W.C. Surcharge Cost Burdens N.Y. Employers

Mar 19 2012 // The assessment surcharge tacked onto workers’ comp costs for New York employers is becoming a burden for businesses, a new study says. The surcharge in New York State is 20.2 percent – more than double that of...

Commercial Lines Prices Up for 4th Straight Quarter: Survey

Mar 19 2012 // Commercial insurance prices increased an aggregate 3 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, the fourth consecutive quarter during which prices for all standard commercial lines rose. Additionally, earned price...

Low-Cost Online Commercial Lines Quoting Tool for P/C Agents Launched

Mar 19 2012 // The launch of a real-time commercial lines rater that gives agents access to a handful of large carriers was announced recently by a division of Networked Insurance Agents. MyNTrack, a division of Grass Valley,...

Commercial Lines Prices Up for 4th Straight Quarter: Survey

Mar 19 2012 // Commercial insurance prices increased an aggregate 3 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011, the fourth consecutive quarter during which prices for all standard commercial lines rose. Additionally, earned price...

Workers’ Comp-Focused Employers Adds 2 Sales Execs in Texas

Mar 14 2012 // Susan Watson and Henry Eford have joined workers’ compensation specialty insurer Employers as sales executives in Texas. Watson is sales executive for the Dallas/Fort Worth market. Based in Dallas, Watson brings 20...