Latest Legislation Headlines
All the headlines from our Legislation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Republican Farm Bill Sows Bipartisan Discontent
May 15 2018 // Farm legislation usually has enough incentives to satisfy everyone across the partisan divide in Congress. Not this year. The Republican version set for a House vote on Friday contains so many unpalatable provisions that...
NRA Sues New York, Alleging First Amendment Violations in Insurance Crackdown
May 11 2018 // The National Rifle Association (NRA) has filed a lawsuit against New York’s insurance regulator and Governor Andrew Cuomo, alleging a regulatory overreach by New York officials that has resulted in violations of the...
Slape, Walker Promoted at Texas Insurance Department
May 11 2018 // Insurance Commissioner Kent Sullivan has promoted Doug Slape to second-in-command at the Texas Department of Insurance. Slape has been at the agency since 1988 and has served as deputy commissioner for the Financial...
Connecticut Lawmakers Vote to Add $12 Fee to Help Homeowners
May 11 2018 // Legislation adding a $12 annual surcharge on insurance policies of every Connecticut residential homeowner to help those homeowners with crumbling foundations is moving to the governor’s desk. The state Senate on...
Password Stolen; Create a New One. What If Your Retina Scan or Fingerprint Is Stolen?
May 11 2018 // A retail store’s ability to authenticate customers by scanning their unique ear or retinal patterns may seem like something out of a sci-fi movie, but this type of identification technology isn’t...
Louisiana Senators Reject Statewide Rules for Uber, Lyft
May 10 2018 // Louisiana state lawmakers again have spurned efforts to enact statewide regulations governing ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. Facing pushback from senators, House Speaker Taylor Barras pulled House Bill 749...
Connecticut House Passes $12 Fee to Help Crumbling Foundation Homeowners
May 10 2018 // Connecticut moved closer Saturday toward adding a $12 annual surcharge on the insurance policies of every residential homeowner to financially help hundreds, if not thousands, of homeowners with crumbling foundations pay...
U.S. Selects 10 Drone Test Projects
May 10 2018 // The U.S. Transportation Department’s 10 winning drone pilot projects aimed at spurring the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in a wide variety of fields do not include Amazon.com Inc. and China’s DJI, but do...
Ohio Looking at Increased Oversight of Amusement Park Rides
May 9 2018 // State lawmakers will consider whether to increase oversight of carnival rides, including hiring more inspectors, following a deadly accident at the Ohio State Fair that flung riders onto the midway. The proposed changes...
With Just Weeks to Go for GDPR, Europe’s Regulators Say They’re Underfunded, Unprepared
May 9 2018 // FRANKFURT/BRUSSELS/PARIS— Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been billed as the biggest shake-up of data privacy laws since the birth of the web. There’s one problem: many of the...
Oil Companies Ask Judge to Kill NYC’s Global Warming Lawsuit
May 9 2018 // Five of the world’s biggest oil companies asked a judge to throw out New York City’s lawsuit seeking to hold them responsible for costs related to the environmental changes caused by their products. BP Plc,...
California Commissioner Ran a Climate Change ‘Stress Test’ on Insurers
May 8 2018 // California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has run a “stress test” on the state’s largest insurers. Jones said during a press conference on Tuesday that he is the first U.S. financial regulator to...
California Judge Orders County to Pay $1.4M in Lawyers’ Fees
May 8 2018 // A judge in central California has ordered Stanislaus County to pay nearly $1.4 million in fees to attorneys of a deputy who sued the Sherriff’s Department for discrimination. The Modesto Bee reports an attorney for...
China’s New Systemic Risk Rules May Curb Giant Ant Financial
May 8 2018 // There’s no other company on Earth quite like Ant Financial. Spanning online payments, insurance, lending, credit scores, asset management and more, Jack Ma’s Chinese behemoth resembles a mashup of PayPal,...
Oklahoma Commissioner Plans Regulatory Action After Towing Claim Bill Fails
May 7 2018 // A bill aimed at prevented insurance companies from cancelling, non-renewing or increasing consumers’ insurance premiums for filing a towing or roadside assistance claim failed to advance in Oklahoma’s...
Blockchain Innovators Follow Reinsurers to Bermuda ‘Sandbox’
May 7 2018 // It was the last day of the World Economic Forum in Davos and Wayne Caines, Bermuda’s minister of national security, was about to head home after an exhausting week. But before leaving, he told a group of blockchain...
Judge Approves $10M Settlement in North Carolina Islands Power Outage
May 7 2018 // A federal judge has accepted a settlement that would allow those who lost power for days last summer on two North Carolina islands to divvy up more than $10 million. News outlets report that a federal judge on Wednesday...
What If Tech Companies, Carriers Conspire to Denigrate Consumer Protections and Agency Value?
May 7 2018 // Here’s to ruffling feathers: Indeed, entities do exist in the insurance industry that do not look after their customers adequately. Carriers also exist that scrimp on claims, and some take shortcuts in underwriting,...
Flood, Tax Relief, Cyber Security: Risk Managers’ View on the Political Turmoil in Washington
May 7 2018 // Congress is headed for a “major showdown” over the flood insurance program, according to an insurance broker lobbyist who notes that the program expires July 31, right in the middle of hurricane season. That...
Kansas Lawmakers’ Proposed Ban on State-Paid Harassment Claims Advances
May 4 2018 // Kansas legislators are moving to ban taxpayer-funded settlements of sexual harassment claims against state officials and block non-disclosure agreements in harassment cases. House and Senate negotiators have agreed to...