Latest Massachusetts Headlines
All the headlines from our Massachusetts Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Massachusetts Agents’ Key Software Vendor Weathers Major Upheaval
May 21 2008 // No tool is more indispensable to an insurance agency than a computer; after all, it’s where the rates come from. So imagine what went through the heads of thousands of Massachusetts independent insurance agents after...
Mass. Insurance Agents Vow to Protect Right to Auto Policy Ownership
May 20 2008 // Massachusetts independent insurance agents are unhappy about a state ruling that they believe erodes their ownership of their customers’ auto policies and denies them proper payment on certain high risk policies. The...
Mass. Auto Competition Heats Up – Over Rules and Regulations
May 19 2008 // Existing carriers call high risk exemption for newcomers unfair; agents say Progressive’s Web site misleads After a month of operating under a new managed competition system for auto insurance, Massachusetts is...
Mass. Nixes 13% FAIR Plan Rate Hike
May 19 2008 // Massachusetts insurance officials have blocked a 13.2 percent statewide rate hike by the state’s residual market home insurer. The decision by Insurance Commissioner Nonnie S. Burnes spares some 150,000 coastal and...
Auto Reform Causes Major Upheaval for Mass. Agents’ Key Vendor
May 19 2008 // Suddenly all the rules changed for Boston Software and 90% of the state’s agents who depend on its product No tool is more indispensable to an insurance agency than a computer; after all, it’s where the rates...
Feds: Lack of Safeguards Led to Mass. Chemical Explosion
May 15 2008 // Federal investigators have concluded that a lack of company safeguards such as alarms and automatic shutoffs led to a massive chemical plant explosion in Danvers. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is expected to issue a...
Widower, Industry Seek Change in Mass. Life Insurance Claims Law
May 13 2008 // When Jenny and John Crowley learned they were having a baby, they did the responsible thing: they bought life insurance. Barely in their 30s, they passed the insurance company’s physicals, applied for a $500,000...
Mass. Cuts High Risk Exemption for New Auto Insurers to 2 Years
May 8 2008 // New carriers in the Massachusetts auto insurance market will be exempt from high risk assignments for their first two years under an amended rule approved by Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner Nonnie Burnes. The original...
Mass. Denies Hike in FAIR Plan Home Insurance Rates
May 8 2008 // Massachusetts insurance officials have blocked a 13.2 percent statewide rate hike by the state’s residual market home insurer. The decision by Insurance Commissioner Nonnie S. Burnes also kills a 25 percent increase...
Mass. Agents Take Aim at Progressive Online; Insurer Defends Site
May 6 2008 // Independent agents in Massachusetts have charged that Progressive Insurance, which began selling auto insurance online in the state May 1, is skirting state regulations and misleading consumers with its Web site quoting...
High Risk Pass for New Mass. Auto Insurers Irks Established Players
May 5 2008 // Massachusetts auto insurers have been operating under a new managed competition auto insurance system for only a month now but a battle is well underway over how to treat newcomers to the state. The Patrick administration...
Established Mass. Auto Insurers Decry ‘Free Ride’ For Incoming Players
May 5 2008 // Existing carriers complain that plan to give 3-year high risk exemption to newcomers creates uneven playing field The Patrick administration is pushing a rule that exempts new auto insurers in Massachusetts from having to...
Travelers Personal Lines Consolidation Hits N.J., Mass., N.Y.
May 5 2008 // Travelers Insurance is consolidating some of its personal lines business center activities across the country, a plan that will mean fewer jobs in Massachusetts and New Jersey but more in upstate New York. Travelers...
Mass. Cuts Workers’ Comp Rates By 1%
May 5 2008 // The Patrick Administration announced an agreement in the 2008 workers’ compensation rate-setting proceeding that will save Massachusetts businesses $11 million. The new rates average to a 1 percent reduction per...
Progressive Begins Selling Mass. Auto Online; Casco Looks to Enter
May 1 2008 // Progressive Insurance begins selling personal auto insurance online in Massachusetts today. Meanwhile, Casco Indemnity, which writes auto insurance in the other New England states on behalf of several mutual fire insurers,...
Agents in the East Find Recession Hurts Others More
Apr 22 2008 // Insurance agents across New England and the Mid-Atlantic are worried about how their customers and they will fare as the region’s economy continues to slow. “An agent’s business is a direct reflection of...
Mass. Law Limiting Liability for Brownfields Transforms Landscape
Apr 22 2008 // Growing up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Henry Wainer remembers driving past the old Alden Corrugated Container Co. on trips out of the city. Then one day, the single-story cardboard box factory burned. The city bulldozed...
Due to Dry Weather, Mass. Cities Asked to Stop Issuing Burning Permits
Apr 22 2008 // The sunny spring days may be a relief after this winter’s snows, but dry weather is also creating fire hazards across Massachusetts. On Saturday, 189 woodland brush fires burned more than 375 acres, sometimes...
Mass. Agents Balk Over 6-Month Auto Policies
Apr 21 2008 // Massachusetts will permit auto insurers to sell six-month policies in another change under the state’s newly operational managed competition system that gives insurers more freedom. Independent agents have balked at...
No Mass. Workers’ Comp For Sleepy Big Dig Employee Hurt Driving Home
Apr 21 2008 // A construction worker on Boston’s “Big Dig” highway project is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for injuries he suffered after he fell asleep while driving home late from work, the...
