Latest Trends Headlines
All the headlines from our Trends Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Illinois Mayor Charged with Insurance Fraud Steps Down
Aug 26 2008 // Niles, Illinois’ long-time mayor, Nicholas Blase, is stepping down after 47 years. In a statement on the village Web site, Blase, 80, said his retirement would be effective Monday, Sept. 1. The Village Board will...
Texas Wind Pool Claims Add Up as New Tropical Storm Develops,
Aug 26 2008 // With hurricane season halfway over for 2008, Louisiana has so far dodged the bullet but Texas has taken on two warning shots with Hurricane Dolly and Tropical Storm Edouard. As hurricanes and tropical storms go, neither...
Survey Shows Child Seat Belt Use Improving in Kansas
Aug 22 2008 // A survey shows that new safety restraint mandates in Kansas have helped boost compliance among children. A study by the Kansas Department of Transportation found that 75 percent of passengers younger than 14 were protected...
Watchdog Survey Targets Insurers
Aug 21 2008 // Declarations “While Allstate publicly touts its ‘good hands’ approach, it has instead privately instructed its agents to employ a ‘boxing gloves’ strategy against its...
Liability Coverage Demand Seen Rising with Florida Elderly Services Crunch
Aug 21 2008 // Dramatic growth in assisted living and home care may increase professional and general liability risks.. Florida faces a crisis in meeting the demand for aging services over the next 22 years as the population aged 85 and...
Mid-Year 2008: Securities Lawsuit Filings Remain Up
Aug 21 2008 // The continued steady subprime and credit crisis-related lawsuit filing level suggests that the litigation wave will continue during the second half of 2008. Is litigation stemming from the subprime- and credit...
Survey: Despite Need, Only 17% of Americans Have Flood Insurance
Aug 21 2008 // Record widespread flooding across the Midwest has once again highlighted the catastrophic dam- ages that flooding can cause. Yet a survey conducted for the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) revealed that only 17...
Survey: Parents Fed Up With ‘Party Schools’ and Politicians
Aug 20 2008 // Americans continue to overwhelmingly reject an ongoing push to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. According to a Nationwide Insurance survey, 72 percent of adults think lowering the drinking age will make alcohol...
Survey: Renters Ill Equipped to Protect Belongings
Aug 19 2008 // As the number of Americans renting homes increases with the current housing foreclosure crisis, a survey by Allstate finds most renters are inadequately prepared to protect their belongings. While homeowners coverage is...
California Proposes 16% Workers’ Comp Rate Increase
Aug 14 2008 // The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California indicated it plans to submit a filing to the California Department of Insurance (CDI) recommending a 16 percent increase in pure premium rates effective...
S&P: ING Ratings, Outlook ‘Unchanged’ by Q2 Profit Decline
Aug 14 2008 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services announced that its ratings and outlooks on ING Groep N.V. (currently ‘AA-‘ – Stable – ‘A-1+’) and related entities are unchanged following...
Florida Regulators May Reject State Farm Rate Increase
Aug 14 2008 // A State Farm rate increase appears in jeopardy after regulators grilled company officials for hours about a request to jack up rates in Florida by 47.1 percent. Florida’s insurance consumer advocate office told...
S&P: U.S. Commercial Lines Outlook Revised To Negative From Stable
Aug 14 2008 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services revised its outlook on the U.S. commercial lines property/casualty insurance sector to negative from stable. Standard & Poor’s credit analyst John Iten explained...
Looking to Increase Your Bottom Line During This Soft Market?
Aug 12 2008 // For over 16 years, MGA’s and Carriers have trusted QualCorp for their Rating and Policy Issuance Software. Their flagship product – FormsPlus – automates all lines of business for both admitted and...
Small Businesses Lose $200K to Fraud, Survey Reports
Aug 12 2008 // U.S. organizations lose an estimated 7 percent of their annual revenues to fraud – but damages are more among small businesses, according to a new study. The median loss suffered by organizations with fewer than 100...
Catlin Posts 21% Decline in First Half Net Income; GPW Top $2 Billion
Aug 11 2008 // The Bermuda-based Catlin Group Limited posted mixed financial results for the first half of 2008. While gross written premiums were up four percent to $2.075 billion, net income before taxes for the period declined by 21...
Argo Group Bucks the Trend as Q2, H1 Net Income Increases
Aug 11 2008 // The Bermuda-based Argo International Holdings, Ltd. (The successor to Argonaut Insurance) announced comparatively good financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2008. Net income for the second quarter...
Survey: New Orleans Residents Optimistic in Spite of Troubles
Aug 11 2008 // New Orleans residents are surprisingly optimistic three years after Hurricane Katrina, considering that most see little or no progress in key areas and feel the rest of the country has forgotten their lingering troubles,...
Colorado Climatologist Raises Hurricane Forecast
Aug 8 2008 // Noted hurricane researcher William Gray, a former Colorado State University climatologist, has revised his Atlantic forecast upward and now calls for a total of nine hurricanes this season — an increase of one. Gray...
S&P: Munich Re Ratings ‘Unaffected’ by Reduced Earning Forecast
Aug 8 2008 // Following the release of Munich Re’s six-month earnings report (See above), Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said that its ‘AA-‘ long-term counterparty credit and insurer financial strength...
