Latest Washington Headlines
All the headlines from our Washington Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Washington Fined Insurers More Than $400,000 in 2009
Feb 23 2010 // Washington state insurance commissioner Mike Kreidler issued more than $400,000 in fines in 2009, as well as revoking the licenses of several insurance agents, the Office of the Insurance Commissioner...
Washington Regulator Wants Emergency Flood Insurance
Feb 21 2010 // Washington is one step closer to allowing the creation of a flood insurance joint underwriting association (JUA), a publicly sponsored, temporary, not-for-profit insurer of last resort to provide flood insurance when the...
Washington Proposal to Ban Insurers’ Use of Credit Scores Stalls
Feb 18 2010 // Washington insurers can continue to use credit scores when rating and underwriting insurance, at least for the time being. Washington Senate Bill 6252, which would have banned credit-based insurance scores, failed to come...
Washington Flood JUA Legislation Passes in House
Feb 18 2010 // Washington House passed legislation allowing for the creation of a flood insurance joint underwriting association (JUA) as an insurer of last resort for businesses in the Green River Valley. House Bill 2560, which passed...
Special Reuters Report: Inside Toyota’s Epic Breakdown
Feb 10 2010 // Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s most dominant and profitable automaker, was not accustomed to outsiders telling it what to do, let alone some obscure bureaucrat from the United States, whose own car industry was on...
Washington Closer To Creating Emergency Insurance for Flooding
Feb 10 2010 // Washington is one step closer to allowing the creation of a flood insurance joint underwriting association (JUA), a publicly sponsored, temporary, not-for-profit insurer of last resort to provide insurance when certain...
Collapse Concerns Grow as Snowstorm Slams Eastern States
Feb 8 2010 // Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. were particularly battered by a weekend snowstorm that caused massive power outages and resulted in moderate structural damage to areas in the region. At least two deaths were...
IBA West Pacific Northwest Chapter Joins Big ‘I’ Washington
Feb 7 2010 // Insurance Brokers and Agents of the West (IBA West) has disbanded its Pacific Northwest Chapter and joined forces with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Washington (Big “I” Washington). According...
Washington Man Pleads Guilty to Workers’ Comp Fraud
Feb 4 2010 // A Ritzville, Wash., man has pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property in connection with illegally collecting workers’ compensation benefits while collecting wages from a nursing home managed by his...
Washington Workplace Violence-Related Deaths Climbed in 2009
Feb 2 2010 // The slayings last year of six law enforcement officers, as well as several workplace suicides, caused deaths due to workplace violence to spike upward in Washington State, the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I)...
IBA West Pacific Northwest Chapter Joins Big ‘I’ Washington
Feb 1 2010 // Insurance Brokers and Agents of the West (IBA West) has disbanded its Pacific Northwest Chapter and joined forces with the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Washington (Big “I” Washington). According...
Confie Seguros Acquires Vern Fonk Insurance Services
Feb 1 2010 // New York-based Confie Seguros, a provider of auto insurance with an emphasis on serving Hispanic consumers, has acquired Puget Sound, Ore.-based Vern Fonk Insurance Services Inc. Vern Fonk serves Washington and Oregon. The...
Builders’ Lobby Sponsors Washington Workers’ Comp Initiative
Jan 25 2010 // A politically active construction-industry group wants voters to decide whether Washington’s workers’ compensation system should face private competition, a move opposed by organized labor and top Democratic...
Labor & Industries: Washington’s Workers’ Comp System Is Sound
Jan 24 2010 // Characterizations by a recent Washington State Auditor’s report on the state’s workers’ compensation insurance system has the state Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) worried that people will...
Washington to Tackle Credit Scoring, Streamline Agent/Broker Licensing
Jan 24 2010 // Bills to ban the use of credit scoring, streamline the licensing of agents and brokers, and improve health care are all on Washington’s Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s (OIC) legislative agenda for 2010....
Washington Commissioner, Insurers Debate Credit Scoring Use
Jan 21 2010 // Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is seeking to prohibit the use of credit history, education and income for rating and underwriting personal insurance — the effect of which would likely result in...
Washington Saves $128 Million By Fighting Fraud
Jan 7 2010 // The fight against fraud in the workers’ compensation system brought in $128 million to Washington last year, according to a new report from the state Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). In addition to...
CNA Chief Motamed: What’s Ahead for CNA, Economy, Industry
Jan 6 2010 // After 30 years at Chubb Corp, Thomas Motamed joined Chicago-based commercial lines insurer CNA Financial in January 2009 as chairman and CEO. In this edited interview with Insurance Journal’s Andrew Simpson, Motamed...
Washington To Tackle Credit Scoring, Streamline Agent/Broker Licensing
Jan 5 2010 // Bills to improve health care, protect consumers, ban the use of credit scoring , streamline the licensing of agents and brokers, and broadening the definition of what’s considered “emergency care” are all...
Washington Not Increasing Minimum Wage in 2010
Dec 31 2009 // Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries reminded employers that for the first time since voters passed an initiative 11 years ago indexing the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index, the state minimum...
