Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Florence Impact on Insurers Tempered by Mostly Uninsured Flood Losses
Sep 25 2018 // This enhanced satellite image made available by NOAA shows Hurricane Florence off the eastern coast of the United States on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018 at 5:52 p.m. EDT. (NOAA via AP) Insurance industry losses from Hurricane...
U.S. Lawsuit Accuses Walmart of Bias Against Pregnant Employees
Sep 24 2018 // Walmart is again being accused of violating federal law by failing to accommodate workers’ pregnancy-related medical restrictions. According to a lawsuit brought by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
Space Junk: Emerging Global Risk Threatens Satellite Communications – Opinion
Sep 21 2018 // Last Saturday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2, which will monitor Earth’s ice sheets, recording changes in ice thickness as small as half a...
Restaurants Must Pay Minimum Wage for Work Unrelated to Serving
Sep 21 2018 // Restaurants must pay waiters and bartenders minimum wage when they are engaged in tasks such as cleaning toilets that are unrelated to their main jobs and do not offer tips, a divided U.S. appeals court ruled this week. At...
Home Price Appreciation in Highest-Risk Areas Outpaces Overall Rate
Sep 20 2018 // Natural hazards are good at grabbing headlines, but they aren’t as good as dissuading people from buying homes in high-risk areas, a new report shows. Median home prices in areas that are in the top 80 percentile for...
Government Ends Criminal Case Over GM Handling of Ignition Switch Defect
Sep 20 2018 // A federal judge in New York on Wednesday dismissed a criminal case brought against General Motors Co. in 2015 over the largest U.S. automaker’s handling of an ignition-switch defect linked to 124 deaths. U.S....
Why Small Mutual P/C Insurers, Insurtechs May Need Each Other: A.M. Best
Sep 19 2018 // Technology-oriented insurance startups and established small mutual property/casualty insurers may find they are better off partnering than competing. Mutual property/casualty insurance companies continue to face...
After Blasts, Massachusetts Gas Customers Face Long Wait
Sep 19 2018 // The blast of high-pressure natural gas that led to dozens of home explosions last week in Massachusetts very likely damaged the system’s antiquated pipeline network and could lead to a long period of testing and...
After Florence Floods, Uninsured Awaken to Painful Reality
Sep 19 2018 // Flood insurance was far from Stephanie Walker’s mind in 2015 when she moved her family into a home in Fayetteville in central North Carolina, nearly 200 miles (320 km) from the coast. The next year, a creek at the...
Karen Clark & Co. Estimates $2.5B in Insured Losses from Hurricane Florence
Sep 18 2018 // Insured losses from Hurricane Florence will reach $2.5 billion, according to an estimate from Karen Clark & Co. The estimate of insured losses to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and autos comes from...
Cigna Says Express Scripts Acquisition Passes Antitrust Review
Sep 17 2018 // Health insurer Cigna Corp.’s $52 billion acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co. has passed U.S. antitrust scrutiny, the companies said on Monday, allowing them to proceed with a...
Cline Named CEO of Ascot’s U.S. Platform Ethos Specialty
Sep 17 2018 // Ethos Specialty Insurance Services, Ascot Group’s U.S. managing general underwriting platform, has appointed Rory Cline as president and chief executive officer. Cline takes the helm from his current role as chief...
San Francisco May Screen Insurers for Their Fossil Fuels Investments
Sep 17 2018 // The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has become what is believed to be the first U.S. municipal body to try to force insurance companies to stop insuring and investing in fossil fuels. In July, the board voted...
Cannabis: Striking a Balance Between Federal and State Laws
Sep 17 2018 // Currently, 30 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of cannabis in some form. Some states restrict use to medically necessary uses, while other states have legalized recreational use. Still other...
High Customer Expectations Leads to New Challenges for Insurance Satisfaction
Sep 17 2018 // Record high customer satisfaction among auto insurance customers is clearly good news for customers, especially at a time when their overall customer experience is being tested by the rising cost of auto insurance. For...
Business Moves
Sep 17 2018 // Hub International, Kilbride & Harris Insurance Services Hub International Ltd., a global insurance brokerage, has acquired the assets of Kilbride & Harris Insurance Services LLC. Terms of the acquisition were not...
Lloyd’s Modernization Plans Move Full-Steam Ahead
Sep 17 2018 // From Electronic Placing to Artificial Intelligence: Lloyd’s America CEO Earlier this year, this reporter was walking on Lime Street, the home of Lloyd’s of London, dodging raindrops. She observed a broker,...
Harassment in the Workplace
Sep 17 2018 // More than one-third (35 percent) of employees in the U.S. feel they’ve experienced workplace harassment, and half of them believe it was due to their gender. That’s according to a study released by specialty...
How U.S. P/C Commercial Insurers Will Fare Through 2019: Moody’s Investors Service
Sep 17 2018 // The outlook for the U.S. property/casualty commercial insurance sector for the next 12 to 18 months remains stable given healthy core earnings and sound balance sheets in the view of analysts at Moody’s Investors...
Vindati Platform Looks to ‘Delight’ Brokers Seeking Specialty Markets for Small-Medium Businesses
Sep 17 2018 // There will soon be a new specialty insurance site that promises to quicken and simplify transactions for U.S. insurance brokers who are serving small and medium sized businesses. Vindati, a New York-based managing general...
