Latest Illinois Headlines
All the headlines from our Illinois Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Classic Cars Worth Millions Destroyed by Fire in Illinois
Aug 11 2017 // Dozens of antique vehicles were destroyed when a fire swept through a garage outside the southern Illinois community of Staunton. Staunton Fire Protection District Chief Rick Haase says about a third of the building that...
Crop Damage from Herbicide Dicamba a Growing Problem Across U.S. Farm Belt
Aug 2 2017 // Larry Martin in Illinois says he’s never seen anything like it in his 35 years of farming. Arkansas soybean grower Joe McLemore says he faces the loss of his life savings. They’re among farmers across the U.S....
Illinois Insurance Agent Sentenced to 5 Years for Fraud Scheme
Jul 26 2017 // A Decatur, Ill., independent insurance agent has been sentenced to 63 months in federal prison for defrauding his clients, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois reported. Chief U.S. District...
Flooding Continues in Northern Illinois as Storms Move Through
Jul 25 2017 // Severe thunderstorms that brought heavy rain, hail and strong winds to northern Illinois have exacerbated recent flooding in some areas. The storms moved through Sunday, causing the already-swollen Fox River to rise again...
How Surplus Lines Insurers Can Beat Illinois Bad Faith Claims
Jul 24 2017 // Surplus lines insurers, your Illinois policies are exempt from all statutory bad faith claims. Or at least they’re arguably exempt. But whether arguable or actual, you should be moving to dismiss these claims at the...
Study: Reforms Targeting Physician-Dispensed Drugs Have Mixed Results
Jul 24 2017 // A new study has found that state reforms to control the costs of prescription drugs by targeting reimbursements for physicians dispensing them are having some effect but that physician-dispensing still accounts for a large...
States See Mixed Results from Reforms Targeting Physician-Dispensed Drugs: WCRI
Jul 12 2017 // A new study has found that state reforms to control the costs of prescription drugs by targeting reimbursements for physicians dispensing them are having some effect but that physician-dispensing still accounts for a large...
Arsons in Peoria, Illinois, Keep Firefighters Busy
Jul 11 2017 // Dealing with a fire can be a serious problem on its own and becomes even more intense when people set buildings ablaze deliberately. That’s the issue in South Peoria, Ill., in late 2016 and earlier this year when a...
Illinois County Sues Opioid Makers
Jul 10 2017 // A southwest Illinois county is suing pharmaceutical companies, alleging the prescription painkiller epidemic is worse due to deceptive marketing. The Jersey County lawsuit was filed against the makers of opioids, including...
Train Derails, Spills 20K Gallons of Exxon’s Oil in Illinois
Jul 5 2017 // About 20,000 gallons of crude oil belonging to Exxon Mobil Corp. was released after a Canadian National Railway Co. freight train derailed on June 30 at Plainfield, Illinois. The cause of the derailment was unknown, a...
How States Rate in Preventing Home, Auto, Work Accidents
Jun 28 2017 // No state goes far enough to protect its residents from leading causes of preventable deaths and injuries – commonly known as “accidents” – on the road, in homes and communities and at work, according to the...
Illinois Jury: AbbVie Must Pay $15M in Depakote Birth-Defect Case
Jun 12 2017 // A federal jury in East St. Louis, Ill., has awarded $15 million to a 10-year-old boy whose mother blamed his birth defect on AbbVie Inc.’s bipolar disorder drug Depakote that she took while pregnant, in the latest...
Illinois Court Upholds $1.5M Judgment for Six Flags Waterslide Injury
Jun 5 2017 // An Illinois appeals court has upheld a $1.5 million judgment against Six Flags Great America for a hand injury a woman suffered on a waterslide. In her lawsuit in Lake County Circuit Court, Shatoya Meeks claimed that while...
Illinois’ Palestine Insurance Agency Adds Erton
Jun 1 2017 // Palestine Insurance Agency in Palestine, Ill., recently hired Mindy Erton as a customer service representative (CSR). In this position, Erton will handle the collection, processing, and distribution of all agency...
Arthur J. Gallagher Acquires Williams-Manny Insurance in Illinois
May 30 2017 // Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired Williams-Manny Insurance Group, headquartered in Rockford, Illinois. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in Rockford in 1896, Williams-Manny Insurance Group is a...
Illinois Senate Passes Bills Requiring Work Comp Pre-Approval, Creating Nonprofit Insurer
May 30 2017 // The Illinois Senate has passed two workers’ compensation measures — one that would require companies writing workers’ comp insurance to get state approval for the rates they charge, and another that creates a...
Injured Worker Attorney Involvement Varies Widely by State
May 18 2017 // There is a wide variation in the percentage of claims with worker attorneys involvement across state workers’ compensation systems, according to the latest research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute...
Walmart Denies Discrimination Claims by Pregnant Workers
May 16 2017 // Two former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees have filed a lawsuit accusing the retailer of treating thousands of pregnant workers as “second-class citizens” by rejecting their requests to limit heavy lifting,...
Illinois’ Cost per Workers’ Comp Claim Trending Down
May 15 2017 // The average total cost of a workers’ compensation claim in Illinois has dropped by 6.4 percent since 2010, but the state still has relatively high costs per claim, according to a report by the Workers Compensation...
Illinois’ Árachas Group Joins Keystone Insurers Group
May 12 2017 // Árachas Group of Bartlett, Illinois, created by the merger of two local insurance agencies, has joined Keystone Insurers Group, becoming the network’s 18th partner in the state. Sullivan & Associates, led by...
