Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Crop Insurance: A Growing Problem in Time of Record Farm Profits
Sep 9 2013 // A Depression-era program intended to save the nation’s farmers from ruin has grown into a 21st- century crutch enabling affluent growers and financial institutions to thrive at U.S. taxpayer expense. Federal crop...
Premium Increases Under Obamacare Not as High as Expected: Study
Sep 9 2013 // The federal Affordable Care Act will not lead to widespread premium increases in the individual health insurance market. That’s according to a new analysis of 10 states and the United States overall by RAND Corp.,...
Product Safety Recalls Generating Greater Insurance Risks
Sep 9 2013 // Consumer product safety recalls in the United States have escalated significantly in recent years, up 61 percent since 2007, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Financial disaster can result...
Workers’ Compensation Market: Challenges Remain Despite Recent Improvements
Sep 9 2013 // The market for workers’ compensation insurance is in a recovery phase of the underwriting cycle after several years of poor results. In particular, premium rates continued to increase meaningfully through the first...
Probe Clears BP Oil Spill Claims Chief But Finds Staff Misconduct
Sep 8 2013 // An investigation led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh cleared the BP claims administrator of misconduct in handling settlement payouts from the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, but found some of his staff...
Investors in $7B Stanford Swindle Start Getting Payouts
Sep 6 2013 // Investors in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated by convicted ex-Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford have begun getting back some of what they lost after a recovery process that has dragged on for more than 4 1/2...
Study Finds Big Disparities in What Insurers Pay Hospitals in Same Cities
Sep 6 2013 // Kansas City, Missouri, and Indianapolis residents with private health plans face some of the widest disparities in U.S. hospital costs, often being charged twice as much as nearby facilities, a study found. The...
U.S. Reinsurance Sector’s Profit Jumps 32% to $4.76B for 2013 First Half
Sep 5 2013 // The Reinsurance Association of America (RAA)’s latest survey shows a group of 18 U.S. property/casualty reinsurers posted $4.756 billion net income in aggregate for the first six months of 2013 — an increase of...
How U.S. Consumers Feel About Usage-Based Auto Insurance
Sep 5 2013 // U.S. drivers are open to purchasing usage-based auto insurance (UBI) policies, or “pay as you drive” insurance, and are even more interested when told their premiums would go down, according to a...
Military Contractor KBR Seeks Immunity from Soldiers’ Toxic Exposure Claims
Sep 5 2013 // KBR Inc. is invoking federal laws shielding contractors during wartime in an effort to avoid a Texas trial over injuries claimed by troops who were exposed to toxic chemicals while guarding a work site in Iraq. KBR argued...
Chubb’s Lloyd’s Syndicate Announces Cyber Security Offering
Sep 5 2013 // Chubb’s London office announced the availability of cyber security insurance through its Lloyd’s Syndicate, Chubb 1882. It is “based on Chubb’s successful US offering, the product combines...
XL Group Assembles Crisis Management Team in U.S.
Sep 4 2013 // XL Group has added a crisis management team to provide corporate clients in the U.S. with product recall, war, terrorism and political violence, kidnap, ransom, and extortion insurance. Led by Denise Balan in New York, the...
Self-Driving Cars Could Be on U.S. Roads by 2020
Sep 4 2013 // Cars that drive themselves could be on U.S. roads by the end of this decade. But don’t take your foot off the pedal just yet. Automakers, universities and others are at various stages in the development of autonomous...
Willis Report Finds Many Firms Silent on Cyber Risk
Sep 4 2013 // Fortune 1,000 firms in the health care, technology and insurance sectors top the list of industry groups most concerned about cyber threats, but many public companies still appear to be avoiding seriously addressing the...
S&P Says Federal $5B Fraud Lawsuit ‘Retaliation’ for U.S. Downgrade
Sep 4 2013 // Standard & Poor’s said on Tuesday the U.S. government filed a $5 billion fraud lawsuit against it in “retaliation” for its 2011 decision to strip the country of its “AAA” credit...
Aspen US Names DiBattista as SVP of Excess Casualty
Sep 3 2013 // Aspen US Insurance in New York has named Jude DiBattista as senior vice president and chief underwriting officer for Excess Casualty. DiBattista has 20 years of industry experience in property/casualty lines, most recently...
Obamacare Supporters Decry Republicans’ Moves on Health Navigators
Sep 3 2013 // Supporters of the U.S. health-care overhaul are criticizing a House panel’s scrutiny of nonprofit groups set to help enroll people in new insurance plans, saying it’s part of a Republican effort to impede the...
Gulf, Atlantic Coasts Appear Safe from 3 Tropical Storms
Sep 3 2013 // Three potential tropical systems stretch across the Atlantic from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to Africa’s west coast, though none is expected to become a major threat this week, forecasters said. The westernmost...
Tough-to-Kill New York Buses Drive Through U.S. Law’s Loopholes
Sep 3 2013 // Outside New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, where “Mamma Mia” is nearing the end of a 13-year Broadway run, unwitting tourists board a bus bearing the name of a company U.S. regulators tried to close two...
DeGraide Named to DVIC Strategic Board
Sep 3 2013 // Fort Myers, FL, 9/3/13 – Disabled Veterans Insurance Careers, dedicated to helping disabled U.S. veterans by providing new opportunities for training and employment in the insurance industry, announces the election of...
