Latest Professional Liability Headlines
All the headlines from our Professional Liability Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #40
Jul 25 2013 // Claims Draft Checks. Not many agencies have claims draft authority any longer, which I consider a positive change relative to what it was 20 years ago. However, a few specific insurance companies continue to believe draft...
Commentary: R.I. Court’s Ruling on Self-Insured Retentions in Med-Mal Policies
Jul 23 2013 // In a surprising decision, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that a self-insured retention (SIR) endorsement in a nursing facility’s professional liability policy was void. However, the Court’s ruling is broad...
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #39
Jul 23 2013 // AOR/BOR Procedures for Benefits. For some unknown reason, I continually find Benefits Producers thinking the P&C AOR/BOR procedures are not applicable to them because the risk on the P&C side does not exist on the...
Here Comes Berkshire Hathaway
Jul 22 2013 // Interview with BHSI’s Peter Eastwood on Building a New E&S Giant When a veteran of CNA joined Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance to lead the new venture’s professional liability division a few weeks...
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #38
Jul 19 2013 // Inflation Factors on Personal Lines Property. Some personal property forms lack automatic inflation adjustments that increase the structural limit annually. Usually these are dwelling forms, but not always. In any given...
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #37
Jul 18 2013 // Mailing Certificates of Insurance. You should always do what companies tell you to do because they always look out for the agent, right? If an agency issues a certificate of insurance that affects the cancellation of an...
Effort versus Success
Jul 1 2013 // I wrote two columns in the summer of 2012 that elicited more online comments and emails than any article, out of the hundreds, that I’ve written. One column’s subject was that producers are paid to produce. If...
Law Firms See Rise in Malpractice Claim Frequency, Severity
Jun 27 2013 // Multi-million dollar payouts for legal malpractice claims are climbing, and so are the total number of claims for law firms, in general. A new study by insurance broker Ames & Gough found that most leading legal...
XL Launches Wage & Hour Liability Insurance Coverage
Jun 21 2013 // XL Group’s Bermuda Professional Lines Unit has launched a new insurance product to specifically address the needs of Fortune 500 companies and other large employers potentially exposed to employee compensation and...
CNA’s Fortin Latest Industry Exec to Join Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance
Jun 20 2013 // Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance officially announced the appointment of Dan Fortin as senior vice president, executive and professional lines. Fortin was previously senior vice president of CNA Specialty. Berkshire...
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #36
Jun 19 2013 // Privacy Compliance. It’s not serious until you get caught, right? The normal individual human reaction to complex laws and laws that defy relatively easy compliance is to acknowledge their existence, give them lip...
Brown & Brown Expands ECC Brand, Names Division CEO
Jun 18 2013 // Florida-based national insurance agency Brown & Brown Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, ECC Insurance Brokers Inc., announced that its excess-and-surplus lines professional liability products will now be marketed...
Southeast Market Update: Flood, Medical Professional Liability
Jun 17 2013 // Frontline Homeowners Insurance, a coastal-focused insurer, is now offering wind and flood coverage to Alabama residents with coastal properties in Mobile and Baldwin Counties. As part of its program, the insurer offers a...
E&O Insights: Why Personal Umbrellas Generate Claims
Jun 17 2013 // How many of your personal lines accounts have an umbrella? Some recent surveys have indicated that insurance agencies write, on average, 1.6 personal lines policies per account. Based on this number, there is a good chance...
10 Things to Know About Commercial Umbrellas
Jun 17 2013 // Commercial umbrellas can be an answer for business owners with significant assets or those especially vulnerable to lawsuits. Umbrellas may provide supplementary coverage for lawsuits, legal fees and settlements as well as...
Ryan Specialty Group’s ThinkRisk Announces New Hires in Northeast
Jun 13 2013 // Ryan Specialty Group’s ThinkRisk Underwriting Agency announced three new hires in its Northeast offices: Jonathan Koppel, Katie Duff and Nicole Simmons. Koppel joins ThinkRisk as a senior underwriter. He is based in...
Hiscox Adds Crime, Data Breach, Privacy Options to PL Portfolio
Jun 13 2013 // Hiscox has launched phase two of their Hiscox Professional Liability Portfolio, adding two additional coverage options to the existing portfolio. Professional services firms can now add crime and data breach and privacy...
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #35
Jun 12 2013 // Carrier Rating Notifications. What responsibility does an agency have to notify clients of carrier ratings? On new business, it is a good idea to list the carrier’s rating. However, if the carrier has an A.M. Best...
CNA Launches Insurance Program for Accountable Care Organizations
Jun 11 2013 // CNA has developed a new integrated insurance product to address the full range of exposures unique to accountable care organizations (ACO). An ACO is a group of healthcare providers who join together to share...
Burand’s Agency E&O Blog: Tip #34
Jun 7 2013 // Personal Lines Liability Limits. If an agency has only offered a client $100,000 liability and they have a $300,000 claim, what do you think the answer will be when, on the witness stand, their attorney asks them whether...
