Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Aon: U.S. Insured Weather Losses Top $15.5 Billion This Year
Jun 22 2011 // Insured severe weather losses have already topped $15.5 billion in the United States this year, three times the full-year average of the last 20 years, insurance brokerage Aon Corp. said Wednesday. Almost all of that comes...
P/C Insurers’ Profits Fell in Q1 as Underwriting Losses Grew
Jun 22 2011 // Private U.S. property/casualty insurers’ net income after taxes dropped to $7.8 billion in first-quarter 2011 from $8.9 billion in first-quarter 2010, with insurers’ annualized rate of return on average...
Court Says Suit Can Proceed over WTC Tower Collapse
Jun 22 2011 // The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey can be sued for negligence over the collapse of a World Trade Center building in the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday. The agency is one of the most...
EU Urges Tariff Standstill as Doha Round Down Payment
Jun 21 2011 // World Trade Organization members should agree to a standstill on tariffs in December as a down payment toward a larger deal in long-running world trade talks, the top EU official said Tuesday. EU Trade Commissioner Karel...
U.S. Sees Room for Improvement in Nuclear Plant Safety
Jun 21 2011 // U.S. regulators see room to improve safety at the country’s nuclear power plants even though tests after the Fukushima disaster have shown they are fundamentally sound, the top U.S. watchdog said on Tuesday. More...
Even Low Blood Alcohol Level ‘Buzz’ Unsafe for Driving: Study
Jun 21 2011 // In the United States, the blood-alcohol limit may be 0.08 percent, but no amount of alcohol seems to be safe for driving, according to a University of California, San Diego sociologist. A new study has found that...
Banks Lose Bid to Limit ‘Hot News’ Republication of Analysts’ Research
Jun 20 2011 // A federal appeals court handed a major defeat to Wall Street banks in ruling that a financial news service did not misappropriate their analyst research for its website. Reversing a lower court ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit...
Zurich Issues Loss Estimate for Spring Storms in U.S.
Jun 20 2011 // Zurich Financial Services Group said it currently estimates aggregate claims of approximately $295 million for both Zurich North America and Farmers Re relating to the series of severe weather-related events that hit the...
Hackers Might Face Stiffer Sentences in U.S.
Jun 20 2011 // Even before a loosely organized group of hackers broke into the CIA’s and Senate’s public websites, the White House asked for stiffer sentences for breaking into government and private computer networks. Last...
Kidnapping for Ransom: A Fateful International Growth Industry
Jun 20 2011 // A global economy offers enormously rich rewards, along with more than enough dangerous risks. Although accurate statistics are difficult to come by, estimates indicate there are anywhere from 12,500 to 25,000 kidnappings a...
Cyber World
Jun 20 2011 // Barely a day goes by without news of yet another data breach at a major corporation or institution. From Sony to Citicorp and the International Monetary Fund to the U.S. Senate, systems have proved vulnerable to hackers...
Federal Appeals Court Reverses Lower Court on Texas ‘Ambulance Chasing’ Bill
Jun 20 2011 // A federal court of appeals has overturned a lower court’s ruling that an “anti-ambulance chasing” bill in Texas is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined that U.S....
Hurricane Season Could Bring Rate Relief
Jun 20 2011 // Property and casualty insurers craving respite from a long-running drop in prices eyed the start of the U.S. hurricane season on June 1 in the hope that summer windstorms will finally turn the market. The June 1 to Nov. 30...
U.S. Retailers Report Rise in Organized Crime, Cargo Theft
Jun 20 2011 // Sophisticated technology, less staff at stores and more gang activity are all contributing to more U.S. stores being hit by organized crime, according to a survey by an industry group. Of 129 retailers, primarily national...
Missouri Grand Jury Indicts Former US Fidelis Owners
Jun 17 2011 // The brothers who formerly owned one of the nation’s top marketers of auto service contracts have been indicted on charges that include stealing and insurance fraud. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster on June 15...
General Star Appoints Marsh US Consumer Administrator of Real Estate Programs
Jun 16 2011 // Marsh U.S. Consumer, a service of Seabury & Smith, Inc., has been appointed the exclusive program administrator for General Star Management Co.’s Real Estate Agents and Brokers and Real Estate Appraisers Errors...
U.S. Industry Reserve Redundancy at $22 Billion: Aon Benfield
Jun 16 2011 // The overall U.S. insurance industry reserve redundancy is $22.0 billion versus $21.9 billion at year-end 2009, after the industry released $10.5 billion of reserves during 2010, a new study of year-end 2010 data shows. The...
SEC Says Brokerage Fund Should Compensate Stanford Victims
Jun 16 2011 // In a major victory for victims of Allen Stanford’s alleged Ponzi scheme, U.S. regulators have concluded that they should be compensated by a brokerage industry-backed fund. The decision announced Wednesday by the...
Michigan Insurer Questions FBI Story About Wrecked Ferrari
Jun 15 2011 // A Michigan insurance company suing to force the federal government to pay $750,000 for wrecking a rare Ferrari in Kentucky questioned whether it was simply an accident. Motors Insurance said its investigation showed the...
Businesses Seek Changes in U.S. Anti-Bribery Rules
Jun 15 2011 // The Obama administration defended its stepped up enforcement of a U.S. law banning bribery of foreign officials, and warned lawmakers that changes could open loopholes for wrongdoers. “Foreign corruption remains a...
