Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
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...
ICC Says Impact of Counterfeiting/Piracy to Reach $1.7 trillion by 2015
Feb 3 2011 // A new report released from its Paris headquarters by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) indicates that the global economic and social impacts of counterfeiting and piracy will reach US$1.7 trillion by 2015 and put...
Predictive Modeling Improving Insurers’ Bottom Lines, Market Share
Feb 2 2011 // Property/casualty insurance carriers currently utilizing predictive modeling continue to see their bottom lines improve and almost 4 out of 10 say it has helped them increase market share. For this and other reasons,...
Lawyer for Wisconsin Abuse Accuser Says Vatican Refuses Lawsuit
Feb 2 2011 // The attorney for a man who says he was sexually abused decades ago by a now-deceased priest at a Wisconsin school for the deaf says the Vatican has refused to be served with a lawsuit over the matter. St. Paul attorney...
Best Withdraws Ratings of Various QBE U.S. Subsidiaries Following Reorganization
Feb 2 2011 // A.M. Best Co. has withdrawn the financial strength rating (FSR) of ‘A’ (Excellent) and issuer credit ratings (ICR) of “a+” of Blue Ridge Insurance Company (BRIC) (Sun Prairie, WI), United Security...
Florida Gov. Scott May Not Implement Healthcare Law
Feb 1 2011 // Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott signaled Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul may not be implemented in the state as a legal battle over the law appears headed to the...
Study: Red Light Cameras Reduce Fatal Crashes
Feb 1 2011 // Red light cameras saved 159 lives between 2004 to 2008 in 14 of the biggest U.S. cities, a new analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows. Had cameras been operating during that period in all large...
Federal Judge in Florida Rules Healthcare Law Must Be Voided
Jan 31 2011 // A federal judge in Florida struck down President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare overhaul as unconstitutional Monday in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law. U.S. District Judge...
Marsh Sees Soft Commercial Insurance Market Continuing
Jan 31 2011 // Another report indicates that soft commercial insurance market conditions that persisted throughout the U.S. in 2010 will continue into 2011. Key commercial insurance market drivers from 2009—including intense...
Investors Face Rising Risks However Egypt Plays Out
Jan 31 2011 // If President Hosni Mubarak clings to power, investors will re-price Egyptian and regional assets to brace for weeks, months or possibly years of heightened political risk. If he goes, global markets could still react with...
Wyoming Roads Deadliest in U.S. in 2009
Jan 28 2011 // A national survey says Wyoming led the nation with the highest number of traffic deaths per capita in 2009. The study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says Wyoming had 24.6 deaths per 100,000...
Home Foreclosure Filings Up in Louisiana Metro Areas
Jan 28 2011 // Five Louisiana metropolitan areas saw home foreclosure activity jump in 2010 as the national housing crisis spread from its initial hot spots, a tracking firm said. Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac said foreclosure filings...
Chubb Reports Q4, 2010 Results; Expects Australia Flood Losses
Jan 28 2011 // The Chubb Corp. reported that net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $620 million, compared to $695 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. For the year ended Dec. 31, 2010, net income was $2.2 billion, the same as in...
Divided Financial Crisis Panel Spreads the Blame
Jan 27 2011 // A deeply divided U.S. investigative panel issued a scathing critique of the culture of deregulation championed by Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, saying the government had ample power to avert the financial...
