Declarations

Pursuing Premiums

“The increase in direct premium in the first quarter of 2025 shows that insurers are continuing to pursue adequate premiums in order to establish more favorable underwriting results for the U.S. homeowners insurance line rather than having the marked improvement in 2024 prove to be a one-year phenomenon.”

— David Blades, associate director, AM Best, in a statement about the report “Improved U.S. Homeowners Results Challenged by January Wildfires.” According to the report, total U.S. homeowners’ direct premiums written increased by 10.7% in Q1 of 2025 over Q1 2024. In 2025, Q1 premium was almost $15 billion higher than it was just four years prior in 2021.

CVS Opioid Suit

“The national settlement agreement funds expenses in response to the opioid crisis at large, but it does not change the fact that the underlying lawsuits do not seek specific damages tied to individualized injuries.”

— Delaware Chief Justice Collins Seitz writing for a unanimous court ruling that CVS Health is not entitled to coverage from insurers, including AIG and Chubb, against thousands of lawsuits over its role in the nation’s opioid crisis. The Delaware Supreme Court concluded that governments, hospitals, doctors, and benefit plans that sued CVS sought damages for economic losses, not individualized “bodily injury” or “property damage” covered by CVS’s general liability policies.

Pot Shop Compliance

“I don’t sense that our council is enthusiastic about the law to legalize, but they’re accepting of reality…Our liquor stores never fail compliance tests, whether for tobacco or liquor. We feel we can do the same thing within the cannabis industry…We’ve had practice time basically to understand the products and understand the customer service side of it.”

— City Administrator Cal Portner talks about how Elk River, Minnesota, views the potential for government-run marijuana shops. Revenue potential from cannabis sales, and how it can be used in the community, is part of the appeal. Assuring compliance is also part of it, Portner said.

Renewable Funding Crunch

“We’re in an energy crunch. We should be doubling down on everything we can build right now. Making things more expensive is antithetical to that.”

— Joshua Rhodes, an electricity expert and research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, discussing how power demand nationwide is expected to soar after decades of minimal growth. Texas has been rapidly adding renewable energy while it struggles to build gas-burning power plants. Data centers, crypto-mining operations, and factories mean energy demand could double in the next five years. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill kills tax credits for renewable projects starting in 2028, making them more expensive to build.

Navigating Citizens

“We believe the core design of the new (EZLynx) clearinghouse platform delivers what we intended to provide agents, which was a smaller initial question set that allows an agent to obtain an initial eligibility decision faster…We will continue to seek improvements to provide a superior policyholder and agent experience without adding additional complexities to the initial application process.”

— Michael Peltier, media relations manager for Citizens, on the organization’s year-old, $36 million clearinghouse system. Roughly 21,000 Florida agents have used the software, with almost 98% of agents who have questions rating the company’s support as “awesome.”

Hot Mess

“Once those leave the truck and hit the road, that’s all garbage, and it’s still pretty warm…I can tell you personally, hot dogs are very slippery. I did not know that.”

— Shrewsbury Fire Company Chief Brad Dauberman after a truckload of hot dogs spilled across a Pennsylvania Interstate 83. The crash briefly clogged the heavily traveled artery in both directions. State police said the tractor-trailer had an unspecified mechanical problem, causing it to push into a passenger vehicle. When the truck scraped along a concrete divider, its trailer ripped open, and the contents scattered. A front-end loader was used to scoop up the hot dogs and drop them into a dump truck.