Latest USA Headlines
All the headlines from our USA Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Subprime Crisis Reveals Larger Problems in Government Regulation
Apr 7 2008 // America is in the midst of a significant financial crisis. A meltdown in the subprime mortgage sector and the resulting credit crunch are threatening to drag down our economy. We applaud the aggressive steps taken by the...
U.S. Disaster Agency FEMA Improved But Still Lacking, Report Says
Apr 4 2008 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency is better prepared for the next disaster but still is not ready for another catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the agency’s internal investigators say. FEMA has...
U.S. Business Lobbyists Launch WTO Offensive
Apr 4 2008 // Business lobbyists from the United States will descend on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva next week to push for favorable terms in a new trade deal, a source familiar with the visits said on Friday. The visits...
Court Says Web Site Can’t Ask Discriminatory Questions
Apr 4 2008 // A roommate-finding site cannot require users to disclose their sexual orientation, a U.S. appeals court in California ruled Thursday, in the latest skirmish over whether anti-discrimination rules apply to the Web. The U.S....
U.S. Appeals Court Tosses $800 Billion Tobacco Class Action Suit
Apr 4 2008 // A federal appeals court tossed out an $800 billion class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies Thursday brought by smokers who said they were deceived into believing “light” cigarettes were healthier. The...
Clinton Plan Would Cut Tax Benefit for Foreign Insurers Competing for Business in U.S.
Apr 4 2008 // Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, as part of a broad plan to boost the fortunes of U.S. workers, if elected would clamp down on tax benefits to foreign insurers doing business in the United States, she...
U.S. Criticizes Chinese Insurers, Other Firms for Avoiding Competition
Apr 4 2008 // Influential Chinese companies that want to avoid competition are the biggest threat to more economic reform in China, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Thursday. Paulson’s comment echoed complaints by...
Louisiana AG’s Suit Against Insurers Over Katrina Stays in U.S. Court
Apr 4 2008 // Policyholders may not be entitled to recover any money from a sweeping antitrust lawsuit that former Attorney General Charles Foti filed against some of the nation’s largest insurers after Hurricane Katrina, a...
Australia’s Rudd Sees Urgent Need for WTO Doha Deal
Apr 3 2008 // Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Wednesday that a deal at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) long-delayed Doha round of trade talks was urgent and possible. “This Doha round is do-able …...
Lloyd’s 2007 Results; +$7.6 Billion
Apr 3 2008 // Lloyd’s announced a pre-tax profit of £3.846 billion ($7.622 billion) for 2007, compared to £3.662 billion ($7.26 billion) in 2006. Gross written premiums were down slightly at £16.366 billion ($32.346 billion)...
U.S. Class Action King Weiss Pleads Guilty to Racketeering, Apologizes
Apr 3 2008 // Class-action lawsuit king Melvyn Weiss pleaded guilty Wednesday to U.S. racketeering charges in connection with a scheme to pay kickbacks to plaintiffs, apologizing to his former law firm and saying he deeply regretted his...
Montana Files Brief with Supreme Court in Insurance Lawsuit
Apr 3 2008 // Montana State Insurance Commissioner John Morrison has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a legal dispute before the U.S. Supreme Court over an insurance company’s dual role of paying disability benefits and...
FEMA: Still too Soon to Assess Arkansas Flood Damage
Apr 2 2008 // Floodwaters still need to recede before officials can determine how damaging two weeks’ worth of flooding was to Arkansas, but leaders said it’s shaping up to be a costly affair. “All indications are that...
Actuaries Identify Hurricanes as Top Insurance Risk for 2008
Apr 2 2008 // Hurricanes pose the greatest act of nature risk to the U.S. insurance industry for 2008, according to EMB, an actuarial consulting firm. With the hurricane season on the horizon, insurers must prepare for this heightened...
U.S. Insured Mortgage Defaults Up 38% in February
Apr 1 2008 // Defaults on privately insured U.S. mortgages rose 38.1 percent in February, as a growing number of homeowners failed to keep up with their loan payments. The Mortgage Insurance Companies of America Monday said 60,911...
Disaster Derivatives Set to Grow in 2008
Apr 1 2008 // With the United States bracing for big hurricanes this year, new derivatives to trade catastrophe risks offer insurers the extra protection they crave against multi-billion-dollar storms. Trading of “catastrophe...
Some U.S. Homes Now Worth Less Than Their Copper Pipes
Apr 1 2008 // Shards of broken glass outside the basement window of 31 Vine Street (Brockton, Mass.) hint at the destruction inside the three-story home. Thieves smashed the window to break in and then gutted the property for its copper...
U.S. Risk, The Colony Group Offer Criminal Justice Coverage
Mar 31 2008 // U.S. Risk, Inc., a subsidiary of U.S. Risk Insurance Group, Inc., has added The Colony Group as a new market for its Criminal Justice Service Operations Program. The Colony Group, rated “A” by A.M. Best and a...
Ratings Recap: Allied World Re, Computer, FGIC
Mar 28 2008 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has assigned its ‘A-‘ counterparty credit and financial strength ratings to the recently acquired Allied World Reinsurance Co. (Allied World Re), a wholly owned,...
U.N. Climate Talks to Test U.S. Shifts
Mar 28 2008 // Up to 190 nations will start work on a new U.N. climate treaty in Bangkok on Monday, in a test of how far the world has progressed after years of deadlock highlighted by a U.S. outburst about a duck in 2005. “If it...
