December 12, 2013
Fifty-four years ago, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations was established by statute to examine the best or most logical accommodations of federalism. For many years, it held quarterly meetings in the New Executive Office Building in Washington, letting some …
November 18, 2013
The Roman politician, general and renowned orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, once wrote that “custom is the best interpreter of the law.” Even today, his observations are relevant to a debate that’s about to erupt in the insurance industry. Let me …
November 4, 2013
A poll released last week by the Risk and Insurance Management Society — the trade association for risk managers of corporations, non-profits and local government agencies, who together are the major purchasers of commercial insurance — found the group’s membership …
November 4, 2013
Recent news reports on the roll-out of reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program have focused on astronomical increases in rates faced by some home and business owners. This language from an ABC News report has been fairly common: New …
October 29, 2013
For several years now now, a lot of people involved with insurance—me included —have been puzzling out the ways that new tobacco products like e-cigarettes and snus might impact life and health insurance markets. To date, the U.S. insurance industry …
October 23, 2013
My friend Mark Calabria at the Cato Institute has a good piece in Roll Call that makes the case for allowing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program to lapse. I’m sympathetic to him in the medium term but, given the enormous …
October 3, 2013
Florida state Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, has filed Senate Bill 228 to maintain the current statutory requirement that the state-run Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, better known as the Cat Fund, sell $17 billion in coverage to the state’s property insurers. …
September 11, 2013
Just in time for the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, our friends at the Cato Institute have published an interesting new report that calls for letting the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program – the $100 billion federal backstop …
August 22, 2013
WFMY-TV in Greensboro, N.C. reports on a common problem facing North Carolina consumers: the arrival of letters from one’s home or auto insurer requesting to raise rates above levels approved by by the state, with the implicit threat of dropped …
August 22, 2013
Draft versions of a forthcoming working group report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — set to be formally released Sept. 27 — have already found their way into the hands of certain news media, and the …