Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
SPECIAL REPORT: Extreme Weather Batters Insurance Industry
Feb 9 2011 // In Chester County, South Carolina, off a dirt road in the middle of a field, insurance companies are literally unleashing a storm. To simulate hurricane-like conditions, an industry group has built a wind tunnel big enough...
Climate Skeptics Remain Unpersuaded by Extra-warm 2010
Feb 9 2011 // Remember 2010? U.S. and international scientists reckon it tied for the warmest year on record, supporting findings of unequivocal global climate change, but despite the evidence climate skeptics remain unconvinced. Those...
U.S. Probe: Toyota Throttles Not Cause of Acceleration Accidents
Feb 8 2011 // A U.S. government investigation showed no link between electronic throttles and unintended acceleration in Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles, a victory for the world’s top automaker battered by recalls over runaway...
U.S. Findings on Toyota Throttles Due Today
Feb 8 2011 // The Obama administration will release Tuesday the findings of its long awaited review of Toyota Motor Corp.’s electronic throttles over complaints of unintended acceleration. The Transportation Department said in the...
Business Moves
Feb 7 2011 // Brown & Brown, Balcos Insurance, Mike Howard Insurance Brown & Brown Inc. subsidiary Brown & Brown of Washington Inc. acquired substantially all of the assets of Balcos Insurance, Inc. and M C H Inc. of Seattle...
Growing Waistlines Costing Economy in Large Proportions
Feb 7 2011 // Measurements of the cost of obesity to the U.S. economy, as well as the workers’ compensation system are growing, becoming an “epidemic,” according to recent research. The studies show that the total...
United States Proposes to Open Roads to Mexican Trucks
Feb 7 2011 // The Obama administration on Jan. 6, 2011, proposed a new inspection and monitoring regime to permit long-haul trucks from Mexico on U.S. highways after years of delays over safety concerns and political wrangling. The...
Climate Change Link to Insurance Losses Decades Away
Feb 7 2011 // Tropical cyclones are expected to cause more damage in the United States and Asia but it could be more than a century before insurers can point to climate change as a factor in losses from storms, scientists say. In a...
Climate Change Link to Insurance Losses Decades Away
Feb 7 2011 // Tropical cyclones are expected to cause more damage in the United States and Asia but it could be more than a century before insurers can point to climate change as a factor in losses from storms, scientists say. In a...
Who Will Invest to Boost AIG’s Return to Public Markets?
Feb 7 2011 // As bailed-out insurer American International Group prepares to return to the public markets, some say it needs a sign from an eminent authority that it is a company with solid operations and a stock worth an investment of...
Insured Losses from Recent U.S. Storm Could Top $1 Billion
Feb 6 2011 // Insurers stand to pay between $790 million and $1.4 billion for insured losses to residential, commercial and industrial properties and to automobiles stemming from the winter storm that struck the U.S. on Feb. 1 and Feb....
QBE Forms U.S. General Aviation Underwriting Group
Feb 4 2011 // QBE the Americas created a U.S.-based general aviation underwriting operation. Headquartered in Atlanta, QBE the Americas’ Aviation Team is designed to expand the company’s global aviation activities. QBE is...
Breckenridge Acquires Interest in Reinsurance Broker REcentis
Feb 4 2011 // Breckenridge IS Inc. has acquired a majority interest in REcentis Intermediaries LLC, a specialty reinsurance broker with offices in Westlake Village, Calif. and Sydney, Australia. REcentis has expertise in energy,...
Virginia Move Could Speed Up Supreme Court Review of Healthcare Law
Feb 4 2011 // Virginia said Thursday it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its challenge to President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, bypassing the appeals process in a rarely used move to try to speed up a definitive...
BofA Sells Balboa Insurance Portfolio to Australia’s QBE
Feb 4 2011 // Bank of America agreed to offload its Balboa insurance portfolio to Australia’s QBE Insurance for more than $700 million, the latest in a string of asset sales by the U.S. lender as it recovers from the global credit...
AIR Estimates Yasi Insured Losses between $356 Million and $1.5 Billion
Feb 4 2011 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has issued early estimates indicating that insured losses to properties and business income from the Category 5 (Australia Bureau of Meteorology intensity scale) cyclone Yasi that...
Aon Benfield Monthly Cat Report Highlights Australian Floods, Brazil Landslides
Feb 4 2011 // Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon Corp., has released the latest edition of its Monthly Cat Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during...
The Uneasy Ties of Americans and Their Government
Feb 4 2011 // Back when the big health care law was little more than a dream, a prominent figure spoke out against the idea of forcing people to get health insurance. He said that would be like solving homelessness by passing a law...
Congress Trying Again on Patent Reform
Feb 3 2011 // Senior U.S. lawmakers are once again planning to reform the patent system to try to eliminate huge damage awards, an issue ripe for legislation after recent court decisions challenged calculation methods. Patent reform, in...
No Comment from QBE on Report of Talks to Buy Balboa from BofA
Feb 3 2011 // QBE Insurance, Australia’s biggest insurance group, is in talks to buy U.S. insurer Balboa from Bank of America , a media report said on Thursday, sparking talk that QBE would have to sell new shares to help fund the...
