Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
U.S. Senate Panel Gives Green Light to Bill to Speed Use of Self-Driving Cars
Oct 5 2017 // A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday unanimously gave the green light to a bill aimed at speeding the use of self-driving cars without human controls, a measure that also bars states from imposing regulatory road blocks. The...
Man Gets Four Years in Prison for Staging Crashes in Connecticut Fraud Scam
Oct 4 2017 // A Haitian man who federal prosecutors say was the ringleader of an auto insurance scam involving as many as 50 staged car crashes was sentenced Monday to four years in prison and ordered to pay $207,000 in...
Where Trump’s Regulatory Rollback Is Having Impact
Oct 4 2017 // When disaster hits the chemical plants in Port Arthur, Texas, triggering fires like those that flared in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Hilton Kelley is the man fielding panicked calls from neighbors unsure whether they...
Safety Groups Oppose Autonomous Driving Bill Backed by Car Makers
Oct 4 2017 // A coalition of auto safety advocates criticized a bill before the U.S. Congress that would allow automakers eventually to sell up to 100,000 self-driving vehicles annually if they could demonstrate they are as safe as...
Houston Considers Flood Control Projects While Recovering from Harvey
Oct 3 2017 // Houston officials say they’re already thinking about how to build and fund projects that will lessen the blow of the next storm, even as the nation’s fourth-largest city continues to recover from Harvey’s...
Growing List of Re/Insurers Make Decisions on Post-Brexit EU Headquarters
Oct 3 2017 // Everest Re Group Ltd. has said its Dublin-based unit has received approval from the Central Bank of Ireland to become a non-life insurer, joining a growing list of insurers setting up regulated EU operations in case...
UPDATE 2: Global Re/Insurers Estimate Price Tag of Q3 Hurricanes & Quakes
Oct 3 2017 // Losses from Hurricane Maria and other recent 2017 natural catastrophes, including Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, the Mexico City earthquakes and other events, have led global insurers and reinsurers to issue profit...
Eyewitness to Destruction, Hope: TOPA Insurance CEO Shares Caribbean Hurricane Experiences
Oct 3 2017 // When Topa Insurance Group President and CEO John Donahue arrived in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) just a few days after Hurricane Irma hit, one of the first things he noticed aside from the utter devastation was the look...
Hudson Taps Atlanta-Based Moreman to Establish Subcontractor Default Business
Oct 3 2017 // Hudson Insurance Group has added Wallace Moreman as senior vice president. In this new position, Moreman will establish a subcontractor default insurance (SDI) business for Hudson. Christopher Gallagher, president and CEO...
Hurricane Claim Insurance Checks Drive New Car Sales
Oct 2 2017 // As Hurricane Harvey poured on Houston, Frank Rodriguez feared for his 2014 GMC Sierra. Once he saw the pickup’s soaking-wet interior and center console full of water, he knew it was a lost cause. He just hoped his...
Finance Industry Sues to End U.S. Rule Curbing Forced Arbitration for Consumers
Oct 2 2017 // A coalition of corporate lobbying groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to overturn a rule that makes it easier for aggrieved customers to file lawsuits against...
Heffernan Insurance Brokers Opens London Unit, Led by JLT’s Murrell
Oct 2 2017 // Heffernan Insurance Brokers, the Walnut Creek, Calif.-based independent insurance broker, announced it has opened a London brokerage, Heffernan Brokers UK Ltd., led by Nick Murrell as executive vice president. Murrell...
U.S. Regulator Lifts Systemic Risk Tag on Slimmed-Down AIG
Oct 2 2017 // American International Group Inc. is no longer too big to fail. That was the ruling Friday from the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which said AIG, whose collapse in 2008 reverberated throughout the U.S. economy,...
Court Overturns $663 Million Fraud Judgment Against Guardrail Maker Trinity
Oct 2 2017 // Trinity Industries Inc. won’t have to pay a $663 million judgment that was awarded in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging the company defrauded the U.S. government with a faulty highway guardrail safety system. A...
Declarations
Oct 2 2017 // Wakeup Call “The Equifax breach was a wakeup call, and with this action, New York is raising the bar for consumer protections that we hope will be replicated across the nation.” — New York Governor Andrew...
Puerto Rico Power Outage to Mean More Business Interruption Claims
Oct 1 2017 // Puerto Rico’s island-wide power outage will mean a surge in insurance claims for lost business income that will increase the already high cost of damage caused by Hurricane Maria, likely tipping some big reinsurers...
North Carolina’s Outer Banks Reopened as Maria Heads Out to Sea
Sep 29 2017 // Maria was finally racing east over the Atlantic on Thursday, giving the United States a rest from the constant threat of tropical weather for more than a month. No injuries have been reported on the U.S. mainland from...
Canada’s Intact Financial Completes OneBeacon Acquisition; Vows to Grow Specialty Insurer
Sep 29 2017 // Intact Financial Corp. said it has completed its acquisition of U.S. specialty insurer OneBeacon Insurance Group from Bermuda-based White Mountains Insurance Group. The purchase price was C$2.3 billion (US$1.7...
RMS Estimates Hurricane Maria’s Insured Losses Will Range Between $15B and $30B
Sep 29 2017 // RMS, the Newark, Calif.-based risk modeling and analytics firm, estimated that the insured loss from Hurricane Maria will be between US$15 billion and US$30 billion. This estimate represents the insured losses associated...
Beazley Estimates $150M Earnings Hit From Hurricanes, Earthquakes
Sep 29 2017 // Lloyd’s of London insurer Beazley said on Friday it reckoned that its losses from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in the Caribbean and southern United States and a series of earthquakes in Mexico would reduce its...
