Discovery News

Winners of Innovation in Insurance Awards Excel in Customer Focus, AI, Sustainability

The winners of the seventh annual Innovation in Insurance Awards excelled in customer focus, creative applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation as well as sustainability, according to the awards’ sponsors, Efma and Accenture. The global awards program, which recognizes …

Court Won’t Intervene on Request to Show Morgan & Morgan’s Relationship with Doctors

Six months after the Florida Supreme Court held that insurance companies’ financial connections to expert witnesses can be revealed in litigation, a state appeals court won’t force discovery of similar information about one of Florida’s largest plaintiffs’ firms. Although the …

Insurers’ Payments to Expert Witnesses Are Discoverable, Florida Supreme Court Says

Florida insurance companies and their lawyers must disclose their financial arrangements with expert witnesses when asked to do so in litigation, the state Supreme Court has decided. In two decisions last week, the high court appeared to underscore previous court …

S. Africa Insurer Discovery Opens Bank, Challenging Traditional Lenders

It took Discovery Ltd. 1.5 million man hours over four years to build a bank. When the startup opens to the public Monday it will challenge South African lenders with histories going back to 1838, and they’re ready for battle. …

Built on Organic Growth, S. African Insurer Discovery Now Weighs M&As

South African insurer Discovery could expand through acquisitions in the future but must first work out how its innovative fluctuating premiums, based on clients’ lifestyle behaviors, could be applied to more traditional businesses. Discovery has spent more than two decades …

South Africans Overpaying Healthcare with Limited Competition to Blame: Watchdog

South Africans are paying too much for private healthcare, the country’s antitrust watchdog said on Thursday, adding patients are sometimes prescribed treatments they don’t need by an industry with limited competition. Presenting its findings of a four-year investigation into the …

South Africa’s Rand Merchant Acquires 30% of UK Motor Insurer Hastings

South Africa’s Rand Merchant Investment Holdings ramped up its presence in the British insurance market on Wednesday with the purchase of a 30 percent stake in Hastings, driving the UK firm’s shares to 2-1/2 month highs. Hastings, which listed just …

Ratings Recap: Gateway, State Mutual, Discovery, Southern Mutual

A.M. Best Co. has downgraded the financial strength rating to ‘B’ (Fair) from ‘B+’ (Good) and issuer credit rating to “bb” from “bbb-” of St. Louis-based Gateway Insurance Company, and has assigned a negative outlook to both ratings. The rating …