Latest COVID-19 Headlines

All the headlines from our COVID-19 Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Quoting Requests to Agencies Down 30% Since Coronavirus Shutdowns

Apr 20 2020 // While consumers may have more time to consider their insurance needs during this period of stay-at-home orders and non-essential business shutdowns brought on by the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic, they aren’t...

Game ON: Young Agents Take On COVID Crisis

Apr 20 2020 // The death toll from the coronavirus keeps rising. So too does the economic toll. The crisis has decimated huge sectors of the economy, leading to unprecedented unemployment and business closures. It has been a time of...

How To Stretch Your Recruiting Budget During & After COVID-19

Apr 20 2020 // COVID-19’s lasting effect on hiring will force insurance organizations to make difficult staffing decisions. It isn’t the norm for me to write a budget and planning article in April; I assume the same can be...

Florida Directs Workers’ Comp Insurers to Comply with COVID-19 Treatment Order

Apr 20 2020 // The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation has issued an informational memorandum to all insurers and entities authorized to write workers’ compensation insurance providing guidance on the treatment of policyholders...

4 Ways COVID-19 Will Change Cannabis and Insurance

Apr 20 2020 // One may not need to be able to read the cannabis leaves to divine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cannabis and insurance. Some good guesses from any insurance professional with their foot in the door of a...

Insurance Industry Unites Through IICF to Help Vulnerable Children During Unprecedented Pandemic

Apr 17 2020 // A note from Julie Tinney: This iJam blog post was supposed to be very different when we originally planned it. But right now, coming together as an industry seems more important than the marketing-focused content I’d...

California Workers’ Comp to Exclude COVID-19 From Rating, Payroll

Apr 17 2020 // The governing committee of the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California on Friday voted unanimously for a special regulatory filing that includes excluding COVID-19 claims from the experience...

Washington Commissioner Says Most Business Insurance Policies Exclude Pandemic, Virus Coverage

Apr 17 2020 // Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler polled Washington state insurers to get a thorough picture of business interruption insurance and found that only two insurers offer coverage for a pandemic event through...

Florida Nursing Home COVID-19 Cases Top 1,300; 30 Test Positive at Tampa Bay Facility

Apr 17 2020 // About 30 patients and staff members at a Tampa Bay area nursing home have tested positive for the coronavirus and some patients have been taken to three hospitals for treatment, officials said. Other residents at the...

South Dakota COVID-19 Cases at Meat Plant Top 1,000; One Worker Dies

Apr 17 2020 // The number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in South Dakota has surpassed 1,100 and more than half of those cases have some connection to the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls. Health...

Coronavirus Confirmed on Offshore Oil Platforms in Gulf

Apr 17 2020 // The new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been confirmed in more than two dozen people working on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard said. While an offshore rig might seem like an unlikely place for...

Tyson Foods: 2 Iowa Pork Plant Employees Dead After Virus Outbreak

Apr 17 2020 // Two employees have died following a coronavirus outbreak that has sickened scores of Tyson Foods workers at a large pork plant in southeastern Iowa, the company said. The deaths of the workers at Tyson plant in Columbus...

California Nursing Home Reports 154 Virus Cases, 8 Deaths

Apr 17 2020 // A Central California nursing home has 154 cases of the coronavirus and eight residents have died in one of the largest single outbreaks in the state, it was reported. The numbers reported by Redwood Springs Healthcare...

Unico in California Offering Covid-19 Suspended Operations Insurance

Apr 17 2020 // Calabasas, Calif.-based Unico American Corp. announced that in response to the forced closure of so many small businesses due to the Covid-19 situation in California, Unico’s general agency subsidiary, Unifax...

Amazon Shuts Warehouses in France over Worker Safety During COVID-19 Crisis

Apr 17 2020 // Amazon has no clarity yet on when its warehouses in France might reopen, the head of its French business said on Thursday, after the e-commerce giant clashed with unions over the measures taken to limit the risks of...

Coronavirus Will Cause ‘Massive’ Losses Across Insurance Industry, Says Allianz CEO

Apr 17 2020 // Allianz SE Chief Executive Officer Oliver Baete warned the coronavirus has upended insurers’ business models and will cause “massive” losses across the industry. The virus has forced closures across the...

FBI Says Foreign Government Hackers Target Coronavirus Treatment Research

Apr 17 2020 // A senior FBI cybersecurity official said on Thursday that foreign government hackers have broken into institutions conducting research into treatments for COVID-19, the sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by the new...

Arkansas Insurance Dept. to Consumers: Contact Agents About COVID-19 Premium Relief

Apr 16 2020 // The Arkansas Insurance Department is advising auto insurance consumers to contact their insurance agents as to whether their auto insurance carrier is offering premium relief in light of the COVID-19 health crisis. AID has...

Damage to Iowa Ag Industry from Virus Will Be Huge, Economists Say

Apr 16 2020 // A group of agriculture economists said on April 15 the coronavirus pandemic will cause billions of dollars in damage to Iowa’s crop and livestock industries. In a report released from Iowa State University’s...

Fears of ‘Wild West’ as Unregulated COVID-19 Tests Hit the Market

Apr 16 2020 // Blood tests for the coronavirus could play a key role in deciding whether millions of Americans can safely return to work and school. But public health officials warn that the current “Wild West” of unregulated...