Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Employers Welcome Delay in Obamacare Mandate; Workers, States Concerned
Jul 8 2013 // While businesses hailed President Barack Obama’s decision to delay penalizing companies that fail to offer benefits under the health law, workers and states may struggle with the uncertain aftermath. In postponing...
Swiss Insurers May Be Next in U.S. Crackdown on Tax Evasion
Jul 8 2013 // Swiss insurers are scrambling to defend themselves against possible investigations into billions of dollars of untaxed assets held by their American clients. As Switzerland continues to seek a data-transfer deal with the...
Investigators Hunt for Cause of San Francisco Plane Crash
Jul 7 2013 // U.S. officials examined flight information recorders and began investigating the crash of an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that burst into flames upon landing in San Francisco, killing two teenaged Chinese students and...
Erie Insurance Offers Safety Tips for July 4th Outdoor Parties
Jul 3 2013 // Seven in 10 Americans who plan to celebrate the 4th of July this year will attend a barbecue, cookout or picnic, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2013 Independence Day survey. That amounts to 164 million...
Prudential Will Appeal SIFI Designation; AIG, GE Will Not
Jul 3 2013 // Prudential Financial Inc., the No. 2 U.S. life insurer, is contesting a U.S. finding that it poses a potential risk to the financial system, becoming the first company to challenge the label that brings additional...
Insurers, State Regulators Try to Block Bank-Like Rules by Federal Reserve
Jul 3 2013 // MetLife Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. have been joined by state regulators challenging the Federal Reserve on how to oversee the biggest insurers under the Dodd-Frank law. The insurers and watchdogs are pressuring the...
Court Asks Former FBI Director Freeh to Probe BP Claims
Jul 3 2013 // Former FBI Director Louis Freeh will investigate possible misconduct by a lawyer involved in making payments to settle claims by people and businesses affected by the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the judge in...
AXIS Names Pesce Director for Surety in U.S.
Jul 2 2013 // Bermuda-based specialty lines in surer AXIS Capital Holdings Limited has named David Pesce as director of Surety for AXIS Insurance. He will be responsible for building and managing AXIS Insurance’s surety bond...
U.S. Fights Growing Wildfire Threat with Shrinking Budget
Jul 2 2013 // The tragedy came without warning. Wind split the Arizona wildfire in two, trapping 19 firefighters from the Granite Mountain Hotshots between twin walls of flame that would take their lives. The erosion of U.S....
Drugmakers Work on Safer Painkillers as Opioid Abuse Epidemic Rages
Jul 2 2013 // Backed by a U.S. campaign to slow abuse of prescription painkillers, drugmakers are devising new forms of the medicines that don’t lead to misuse and new products that treat dependency in a bid to change the face of...
U.S. Property Cat Re Prices Down, Casualty Softening: Willis Re
Jul 2 2013 // Reinsurers are taking “robust defensive measures to maintain market positions recently eroded by new capital markets entrants,” with prices down 25 percent on some Florida property accounts, according to a new...
Swiss Re, Lloyd’s Among Insurers Probed by N.Y. on Iran Sanction
Jul 1 2013 // Swiss Reinsurance Co. and Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market, are among insurance companies being probed by New York’s insurance regulator about their compliance with an expanded Iran...
How Alabama County’s $4.2B Bankruptcy Plan Affects Insurers, Other Debtholders
Jul 1 2013 // Jefferson County, Alabama, filed a plan to end the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy later this year by cutting $1.2 billion in principal payments to investors holding defaulted sewer-related debt. Less than $100 million...
Arizona Wildfire Takes Lives of 19 Elite Firefighters
Jul 1 2013 // An elite team of 19 firemen were killed on Sunday in one of deadliest U.S. firefighting disasters in decades as flames raced through dry brush and grass in central Arizona, destroying scores of homes and forcing the...
CoreLogic to Buy Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, DataQuick for $661 Million
Jul 1 2013 // CoreLogic Inc. agreed to buy three real estate data companies from TPG Capital’s Decision Insight Information Group for $661 million to expand its coverage of the property and casualty insurance industries. CoreLogic...
Michigan Ban on Domestic Partner Benefits Blocked
Jul 1 2013 // A federal judge has blocked Michigan’s ban on domestic partner benefits for employees who work for public schools or local governments, saying state lawmakers simply wanted to punish gays and lesbians. U.S. District...
Insurers Turned Underwriting Profit in Q1, Attained Record Surplus
Jul 1 2013 // First quarter results for U.S. property/casualty insurers show they made a profit on underwriting for the first time since late 2009. Private U.S. property/casualty insurers’ net income after taxes rose to $14.4...
How Catastrophe Experts Model Hurricane-Induced Storm Surge
Jul 1 2013 // The 2004 and 2005 North Atlantic hurricane seasons were a turning point in the way the property/casualty insurance industry viewed hurricane risk. The needs of the insurance industry required catastrophe models to...
The Disaster Issue – Where Insurers Fear to Tread
Jul 1 2013 // One storm is all it takes these days. Anyone who’s been paying attention needn’t be reminded that even a post-tropical cyclone can cause major damage. That’s what Sandy was when she came on shore in New...
Bethesda, Md., Ranked as Most Secure Metro Area in Farmers Insurance Study
Jun 28 2013 // The Bethesda–Gaithersburg–Frederick region in Maryland was ranked as the most secure large U.S. metro area in the latest study published by Farmers Insurance Group of Companies. This annual study defines large...
