Florida Gov. Scott, Insurers Vow Fight to Save PIP Law After Injunction

March 22, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

A Florida circuit court judge has issued a temporary injunction against certain provisions of the state’s no-fault personal injury protection (PIP) law, ruling that it is no longer a

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N.J. Bill Would Require Homeowners Insurers to Provide Policy Summary

January 17, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle6 Comments

The New Jersey Assembly’s financial institutions and insurance committee gave approval Monday, Jan. 14, to a recently introduced bill that seeks to make it easier for homeowners to understand what their policy covers and does not cover.

The bill, A3642, would require homeowners insurers to give policyholders a one-page summary of the policy explaining “notable coverages and exclusions under the policy” that are “written in a simple, clear, understandable, and easily readable way.”

What constitutes “notable” coverages or exclusions would be determined by the state’s commissioner of banking and insurance. The copy of the proposed bill can be found at the N.J. Office of Legislative Services website (a PDF file).

Under the proposal, the one-page summary would be added into the homeowners insurance consumer information brochure provided to the policyholder when the policy is purchased or renewed. Under the current law, the homeowners insurance consumer information brochure contains information that explains the insurer’s hurricane deductible program, if any, as well as information on the National Flood Insurance Program.

The bill was introduced to help clear up some confusions reported in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. For example, many homeowners were surprised to find out about some of the exclusions when they filed Sandy claims and that the federal flood insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program is subject to certain limitations, according to a report in The Star-Ledger. The bill was sponsored by Ruben Ramos (D-Hudson), Gary Schaer (D-Bergen and Passaic), Linda Stender (D-Middlesex, Somerset and Union) and Paul Moriarty (D-Camden and Gloucester).

Committee Included Amendments to Assuage Insurers’ Concern

The Assembly’s financial institutions and insurance committee also added a couple of amendments to allay insurers’ concerns before green-lighting the measure. Insurers have expressed concern that the one-page summary might create legal vulnerabilities for insurers in cases involving potential lawsuits.

The committee tried to address that issue by adding an amendment that says the one-page summary shall explicitly state that it is only guidance and not the actual policy.

The amendment is as follows: “The summary shall not be considered a replacement for the terms of the policy of insurance, shall not have the effect of altering the coverage afforded by the policy, and shall not confer new or additional rights beyond those expressly provided for in the policy. The summary shall expressly state that the summary is only provided as guidance to the homeowner in understanding the terms of the policy of insurance.”

The committee also added an amendment that says the department of banking and insurance would decide the timeline for when the insurers would have to start providing the summary. The amendment states: “This act shall take effect on the 90th day following enactment except that the act’s provisions shall not be implemented until the Department of Banking and Insurance, by regulation, issues a timeline for implementation.”

 

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Louisiana Pie Maker Sues Fire Suppression Company, Insurers

January 8, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

New Orleans pie maker, Simon Hubig Co. Inc., whose Louisiana plant was destroyed in a blaze six months ago, has sued the Kenner company that created and maintained its fire suppression system.

The Times-Picayune reported the lawsuit, filed in New Orleans Civil District Court, alleges Fire & Safety Commodities’

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Art Insurers Face Record Loss from Superstorm Sandy

December 21, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 CommentsFine art insurers face claims of up to half a billion dollars, their biggest ever payout, to compensate the owners of artwork destroyed when Superstorm Sandy flooded galleries in New York.

Work by 1960s graphic artist and illustrator Peter Max accounts for the bulk of the loss, landing insurers including Catlin with a claim of $300 million, an industry source said.

“This will be the largest single art loss to the market,” said Filippo Guerrini-Maraldi, head of fine art at insurance broker RK Harrison.

Catlin declined to comment.

Axa, the world’s biggest art insurer, expects to pay out $40 million, art claims director Colin Quinn said, and brokers and underwriters say the total loss could reach $500 million.

That would wipe out virtually a full year’s revenues for the art insurance industry, forcing it to push up its prices.

“Some underwriters will lose appetite for writing fine art business after Sandy, the global capacity for fine art business will shrink, and as a result rates will go up,” Guerrini-Maraldi said.

Galleries and art warehouses affected by Sandy could be forced to pay up to 25 percent more for insurance, and insurers could refuse to cover premises in low-lying areas of Manhattan against floods, one underwriter said, asking not to be named.

Under Water

Sandy, which killed 132 people as it swept through the north-eastern United States on Oct. 29, caused flooding in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, where many New York art galleries are located. Art warehouses in New Jersey were also affected, insurers and brokers say.

Sandy is expected to cost the insurance industry a total of $25 billion, making it the second costliest storm after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Art insurers have previously expressed concern that popular art storage warehouses accumulate too much costly artwork in a single location, exposing them to big losses if the facilities flood or catch fire.

The art insurance industry, led by Axa and Bermuda-based Hiscox, takes in between $500 million and $600 million a year in premiums.

Art insurance prices have been falling for several years, reflecting stiff competition and a generally low level of claims.

Payouts worth a combined $500 million would dwarf previous big art losses, which include a 20 million pound ($33 million) hit from a 2004 warehouse fire in east London that destroyed work by British artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

In 2006, U.S. casino owner Steve Wynn put his elbow through a Picasso he owned, resulting in a claim of about $40 million.

Art insurance payouts are sometimes lower than the initial claim because of adjustments to reflect the market value of the artwork.

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: AP / Reuters, art insurance, Catastrophe, Claims, Commercial Lines, fine art insurance, Superstorm SandyHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Insurers Not Seeing Large Number of Claims From Snowstorm So Far

February 13, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A fierce winter storm brought deep snow and high gusting winds to the Northeast last weekend, but a number of insurers are saying that so far, they are not seeing a large number of claims.

State Farm said Tuesday the company has yet not seen a large number of claims to-date from the weekend storm. “Our claims department is reporting less than 100 and they are being handled through our regular claims processing procedures,” State Farm spokesperson Arlene Lester told Insurance Journal.

Meanwhile, Arbella Insurance Group, a Quincy, Mass.-based carrier providing personal and business insurance in the New England region, said the company does not expect last weekend’s snowstorm to reach the same level of impact as the other extreme weather events that occurred in New England in 2011 and 2012.

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California Commissioner Fingers Insurers for Iran Investments

February 13, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Wednesday singled out eight insurers licensed to do business in the state who continue to have investments tied to Iran’s energy, military and nuclear sectors.

During a press conference in Los Angeles Jones called out the insurers for not divesting their holdings in multinational companies doing business in Iran under the Department of Insurance’s Iran Divestment Program launched in 2009 by then Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

In tying the insurers, all but one of which are life insurance companies, to Iranian investments, Jones noted that the nation itself has been tied with terrorism and he referred to Iran’s efforts to become a nuclear nation.

Around the same time that Jones was making his remarks it was being reported that Iran had started installing a new generation of machines for enriching uranium, a move countries like the U.S. fear is an effort to speed up Iran’s alleged efforts to create a nuclear weapon despite Iran’s stated intent that its goal is to generate nuclear power and not weapons of mass destruction.

Jones stood with several members of Los Angeles’ Jewish community when he made the announcement, and he also used the occasion to praise the program’s results over the last four years.

From the roughly 1,300 insurers doing business in California the total amount of investments in companies doing business in the Iranian military, energy and nuclear sectors was roughly $6 billion at the beginning of the program. Currently insurer investments in companies doing business with the Iranian energy, military, and nuclear sectors total just under $200 million, a 97 percent reduction, according to Jones.

And the list of insurers declining to divest has been reduced to eight.

Those eight insurance companies are: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Connecticut General Life Insurance Co., ING USA Annuity and Life Insurance Co., The Ohio National Life Insurance Co., Ohio National Life Assurance Corp., Life Insurance Company of North America, National Guardian Life Insurance Co., Assurity Life Insurance Co.

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EU Insurers Strip Coverage from Tankers Storing Iranian Oil: Reuters

October 12, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsTwo European insurers have withdrawn cover for tankers involved in the Iranian oil trade, the first such move since tough new sanctions were imposed in July, documents obtained by Reuters show.

The tankers, operated by Hong Kong’s Titan Petrochemicals Group Ltd., were used to store Iranian oil for top oil trader Vitol and little known shipping firm Glammarine, Reuters reported previously.

While the European Union sanctions bar Western-based insurers from covering tankers that carry, rather than store, Iranian oil, the documents show the insurers were not prepared to risk falling foul of the curbs.

“Titan’s conduct breaches the spirit if not the wording of U.S. and EU sanctions against Iran,” a Sept. 14 document quoted Mike Salthouse, director of North Insurance Management, as saying on behalf of the North of England P&I Association, Titan’s main insurer.

“Were the Association to continue to provide insurance to the Titan fleet we have concluded that there would be a high probability of further breaches of sanctions,” it said.

Gard, the world’s second-largest marine insurer, also dropped the shipping and oil storage company, according to a Sept. 7 document from the insurer to Titan. It had covered one of the firm’s floating oil storage vessels.

Both European insurers declined to comment.

Titan must now find new insurers to continue operating its floating storage business off Malaysia, one of the biggest in Southeast Asia. That could prove difficult if other Western-based insurers, which cover around 90 percent of the world’s tanker fleet, also decide to shut Titan out.

Titan officials could not be reached for comment.

The company’s floating oil storage business generated more than $64 million in revenue last year, about a fifth of Titan’s total revenue, according to the firm’s annual results. Titan hires the floating storage vessels under long-term contracts with independent shipowners such as Norway’s Frontline.

Frontline, the world’s largest independent oil tanker operator, has withdrawn the charter for at least one of Titan’s fleet due to the ship’s involvement in the Iranian oil trade, a Frontline official told Reuters.

Heavy with debt and with five straight years of losses, Titan is being sold to Chinese oil trader Guangdong Zhenrong Energy Co. Ltd, whose parent, Zhuhai Zhenrong, is blacklisted by the United States as the biggest supplier of refined petroleum products to Iran.

Titan is locked in a legal battle with U.S. buyout fund Warburg Pincus, which holds a stake of around 10 percent in the shipper. New York-based Warburg has ploughed $215 million into Titan since 2007 in an unprofitable investment, and has filed a petition to wind up the company through the Bermuda courts.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in London and Stephen Aldred in HONG KONG; Editing by Michael Urquhart and Ian Geoghegan)

 

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: International NewsTopics: European Union marine insurers, Iran sanctions, Iranian oil, Iranian oil tanker insurance, North Insurance Management, Titan PetrochemicalsHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Skelton-Morris Joins Keystone Insurers in Georgia

January 8, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Skelton-Morris Associates, a Hartwell, Ga.-based insurance agency, is the eleventh Keystone Insurers Group partner in Georgia.

Skelton-Morris Associates has offices in Toccoa, Ga., Lavonia, Ga., and Anderson, S.C.

The agency is under the management of Chip Kidd, Carey Jackson and Jennifer Patterson.

 

 

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Keystone Insurers Group Adds 2 Georgia-Based Agencies

December 20, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Keystone Insurers Group announced the addition of two independent agencies in Georgia to its franchise business for a total of 10 in the state. The new franchise partners are Jowers-Sklar Insurance and The Harbin Agency.

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Surplus Lines: Regulators Vetting of Alien Nonadmitted Insurers

October 4, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is a non-profit entity that acts as the trade association for state insurance commissioners.

Although the NAIC may play a central role in regulation of the insurance industry, it nonetheless is a private organization that has no apparent governmental or other legal immunity from suit or liability for negligent acts or omissions associated with performance of regulatory functions.

Pursuant to Section 524(2) of the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act of 2010 (NRRA), the Congress delegated to the NAIC responsibility for determining whether an alien insurer (i.e., an insurer domiciled outside the United States) qualifies to accept risks from a licensed surplus lines broker.

A State may not –

prohibit a surplus lines broker from placing nonadmitted insurance with, or procuring nonadmitted insurance from, a nonadmitted insurer domiciled outside the United States that is listed on the Quarterly Listing of Alien Insurers maintained by the International Insurers Department of the NAIC.

As a matter of federal law, the NAIC therefore is vested with the role of gatekeeper to protect the nation’s consuming public from the risk of insolvency — or outright fraud — by insurers domiciled outside the United States.

Infamous frauds not so long ago by the likes of Alan Teal and Carlos Miros, among others, as well as gross mismanagement in yet other cases, led to multiple insurer insolvencies of nonadmitted insurers during the 1970s and 1980s. Transit, Mission, and Mutual Fire are a few that come to mind. Without guaranty association coverage, untold millions of dollars of policyholder claims went unpaid.

What happens if the NAIC fails to detect obvious patterns of failures to pay claims, disregards red flags signaling material financial deterioration, or overlooks outright fraud? Is the NAIC effectively a financial guarantor for having vetted alien insurers?

Surplus lines brokers ultimately are responsible for the security of alien insurers with whom they place business. Nothing in the NRRA provides any immunity for failure to discharge that obligation simply because an alien insurer appears on the NAIC’s approved list.

Nonetheless, in assessing the quality of security, surplus lines brokers, risk managers, and the public rely heavily on any approval that carries indicia of regulatory imprimatur, in this case the NAIC Quarterly Listing of Alien Insurers.

But is the NAIC up to the task to protecting the consuming public from the risk of dealing with unscrupulous insurers beyond the reach of U.S. regulatory jurisdiction?

Prior to the NRRA, state regulators could take or leave the NAIC’s approval of alien insurers. Now that the NAIC is the gatekeeper, how is it going to accomplish this critical task?

For more than two decades active cooperation and market surveillance by and among state regulators, surplus lines stamping offices, and industry groups has kept the bad guys out.

Although the NRRA changed the rules for taxation and regulation of surplus lines transactions, Congress never contemplated that fraudsters posing as insurers domiciled on some atoll in the middle of the Pacific would be quick to exploit NRRA transitional cracks.

Under the NRRA, the NAIC is charged with making sure that does not happen.

There is no lack of financial data. The NAIC already receives ample annual and quarterly data to evaluate the financial bona fides of alien insurers. Necessary but not sufficient.

To effectively protect the public, two key pieces are missing.

The first is the seasoned expertise of senior insurance regulatory personnel who have dealt with problems involving nonadmitted insurers on a day-to-day basis. Over the years, regulatory staff at the larger insurance departments developed their own informal network for information exchange whenever apparent bad actors came to their attention. They did not simply await quarterly or annual financial reports.

Equally if not more important is the second missing piece.

Surplus lines stamping offices, industry trade organizations such as the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (NAPSLO) and the American Association of Managing General Agencies (AAMGA), and well-regarded industry leaders have served as an informal market surveillance network to regulators for decades. The latter in particular know the alien insurer players throughout the world and are well-informed about what is happening in the market on a real-time basis. That is their business.

By enacting the NRRA, Congress did not intend to mothball the market surveillance resources that have been so effective in protecting the consuming public from fraudulent offshore insurance operations.

The state insurance commissioners control the NAIC. They have a duty to ensure that their trade organization draws fully on the resources and expertise of state insurance departments, stamping offices, and industry. Congress took it as a given that they would.

Simple regulatory prudence should dictate that the resources and expertise represented by seasoned insurance regulatory personnel and the industry network be deployed sooner rather than later.

No one wants a replay of the era that ushered even Lloyd’s to the brink of extinction only 20 years ago.

Brown is an insurance regulatory attorney who has authored previous articles about the NRRA and its implementation, and made presentations on the topic to industry groups. He regularly represents surplus lines brokers, insurers, and industry organizations in a variety of surplus lines and other regulatory matters. Brown can be contacted at RAB

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North Carolina Insurers Seek 17.7% Increase in Homeowners Rates

October 4, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

North Carolina homeowners could see their first rate increase in four years as the state’s rating bureau called for a statewide average 17.7 percent increase in loss cost rates.

The North Carolina Rate Bureau filed for the rate increase on behalf of all property insurers. If approved as filed, it would increase loss cost rates by 17.7 percent. That figure includes a homeowners’ rate hike of 17.4 percent, a rental rate increase of 30 percent and a 29.5 percent increase in condominium coverage.

Rate Bureau General Manager Ray Evans said the rate increase is needed due to several factors including the rise of reinsurance. He said reinsurance is a major concern for insurers such as the North Carolina Farm Bureau with a concentration of policies in the state.

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Insurers Begin Providing Health Plan Buying Guides

September 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsThe Obama administration on Monday began requiring health insurers to provide user-friendly guides to patients that explain their benefits, aiming to make buying insurance nearly as easy as scanning packages of food for nutrition facts.

Under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law, employers and insurers must provide a summary of benefits and coverage in a clearly worded, standardized format that allows the private insurance market’s 163 million beneficiaries to make side-by-side comparisons of plan offerings.

Consumers are also required to have access to a standardized glossary of insurance and medical terms. The rule takes effect just as insurers and employers prepare for annual enrollment periods, when employees select their coverage for 2013.

The benefit guides will also factor into the creation of new state-based health insurance markets due to begin offering subsidized, private coverage to moderate-income consumers in January 2014.

The Department of Health and Human Services released an eight-page sample benefits form to demonstrate how the actual summaries will outline everything from deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses to referrals and network providers.

The guides are also supposed to show what a plan covers for two common medical situations — new births and adult diabetes.

U.S. officials compared the summaries to the Nutrition Facts label required for packaged food sold in the United States.

The rule has been criticized by the insurance industry as a new administrative burden that will increase the cost of healthcare coverage.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: buyers guide, health plan buyers guide, Patient Protection and Affordable Care ActHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Kentucky Recommends Anthem Health Plan as Benchmark for Insurers

October 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Kentucky has recommended that the Anthem Preferred Provider Organization serve as the benchmark plan for insurers in Kentucky under federal health care reforms.

Anthem’s offerings would be the minimum level of benefits provided for individual and small group coverage under the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, an online service that will guide Kentuckians to health coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2014.

Kentucky Insurance Commissioner Sharon Clark said Anthem covers the 10 essential health benefits specified under the federal Affordable Care Act and was the most cost effective of 10 plans reviewed.

Kentucky also is recommending that the Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program be the benchmark plan for pediatric vision and dental services.

Both recommendations still have to be approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Southeast NewsTopics: Anthem, employee benefits, health exchange, Kentucky health exchange, minimum benefitsHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Insurers Face Tougher Times as Somali Piracy Drops

September 21, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsA dramatic fall in pirate attacks off the Somali coast is forcing down the cost of piracy insurance for commercial ships, taking the shine off a fast-growing and lucrative market for London-based insurers.

International navies have cracked down on pirates, including strikes on their coastal bases, and ship firms are increasingly using armed guards and defensive measures on vessels including barbed wire, scaring off Somali seaborne gangs.

That reduced the number of incidents involving Somali pirates to just 69 in the first half of 2012, compared with 163 in the same period last year, according to watchdog the International Maritime Bureau.

“The chance of pirates being able to carry out successful hijackings is now very slim, which is probably deterring many would-be pirates from going to sea,” said Rory Lamrock, an intelligence analyst with security firm AKE.

War torn Somalia is next to the Gulf of Aden’s busy shipping lanes, and poverty has in recent years tempted many young men to take up piracy, storming commercial vessels and holding their crews and cargo to ransom.

Last year, they netted $160 million, and cost the world economy some $7 billion, according to the American One Earth Future foundation.

The drop in Somali pirate activity is weighing on the market for so-called marine kidnap and ransom insurance, which has grown from scratch to be worth about $250 million in little more than five years, according to informal industry estimates.

Spending on marine K&R cover, which indemnifies ship owners against the cost of paying ransoms and recovering vessels and crew, has halved compared with two years ago, estimates Will Miller of Special Contingency Risks, a unit of insurance broker Willis.

“We are seeing a softening in the rates that underwriters are charging for piracy cover,” Miller said. “The key driver is the implementation of more robust security measures on board by the shipping community.”

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Insurers risk bank-inspired crackdown: Lloyd's CEO

MONACO (Reuters) - Insurers could be caught up in a fresh regulatory backlash triggered by banking scandals such as the Libor rate-rigging affair, the head of the Lloyd's of London insurance market said.

"We are always having to deal with the fallout of the actions of others and the regulators responding accordingly," Lloyd's Chief Executive Richard Ward told Reuters.

"You have the Libor scandal, all the stuff with Standard in the U.S. - that doesn't help restore the image of financial services in the eyes of the public, the politicians and regulators."

British bank Barclays was fined $450 million earlier this year for rigging the London Interbank Offered Rate, a key lending rate used to set prices for a wide range financial transactions.

Rival Standard Chartered agreed last month to pay $340 million to settle allegations by a New York regulator that it carried out banned transactions with Iran.

The latest allegations of misconduct by British banks, which also include the potential mis-selling of complex derivative hedges to small business borrowers, could prompt regulators to police insurers and banks alike more aggressively, Ward said.

"There's always going to be increased regulatory scrutiny when there are people doing things which are wrong," he said on the sidelines of the reinsurance industry's annual meeting in Monte Carlo.

"The 2008 financial crisis was not an insurance crisis, it was a banking crisis. All the regulatory changes we've experienced in the UK have been driven by the banking crisis."

Insurers have for the last four years been lobbying for an exemption from proposed new regulations aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2008 crisis, arguing that the meltdown was caused largely by the banking industry.

Under rules being drafted by regulators from the G20 group of countries, insurers or banks deemed big enough to destabilize the financial system if they collapsed could be forced to hold an additional capital buffer.

Insurers say they do not pose a "systemic" threat, unlike banks, because they do not lend money and their customers cannot withdraw their cash overnight, and argue regulators should treat them more leniently.

"Any business that just undertakes insurance should not get onto any list of systemically important financial institutions," Ward said.

(Reporting by Myles Neligan; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)



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Customer Satisfaction with Auto Insurers at New High: J.D. Powers

June 26, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Overall customer satisfaction with auto insurance companies has reached an all-time high, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 U.S. Auto Insurance Study.

The satisfaction rate was driven primarily by increases in satisfaction with policy offerings, billing and payment, practices.

The study measures customer satisfaction with auto insurance companies across five factors: interaction; price; policy offerings; billing and payment; and claims.

Overall satisfaction with auto insurance companies is 804 (on a 1,000-point scale), up 14 points from 2011. Satisfaction levels in 2012 are the highest since the study was launched in 2000.

Satisfaction increased in all factors in 2012, with significant improvements in policy offerings (

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Insurers, Providers Brace For Health Care Decision

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U.S. Insurers Have Capacity to Provide 2012 Hurricane Coverage: Fitch

May 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Sufficient capacity remains available in the insurance and reinsurance markets to meet the demand for coverage prior to the approaching U.S. hurricane season, according to Fitch Ratings.

Early forecasts for the 2012 U.S. hurricane season are that the North Atlantic Basin will likely produce below-average hurricane frequency relative to long-term results.

According to Fitch, many domestic property insurers and global reinsurers reported declines in statutory surplus and shareholders’ equity in 2011 due to high catastrophe losses. However, Fitch said that sufficient underwriting capacity remains available in the (re)insurance markets.

Traditional insurance coverage is also supplemented by(re)insurance linked securitizations which accelerated in 2012 from the largest amount of catastrophe bond issuance ($1.5 billion) of any first quarter in history, Fitch said.

According to the ratings agency, the U.S. property (re)insurance segment experienced significant price improvement in recent quarters as the market continues to react to the catastrophe events of 2011, both international and domestic, along with continued integration of Risk Management Solutions’ (RMS) version 11.0 hurricane model update. Fitch said each factor has served as a catalyst for positive pricing movement in the U.S. property insurance market, specifically in regions and lines of business with significant catastrophe exposure.

The analysis is included in Fitch’s annual hurricane season desk reference, which provides geographic market share analysis to estimate the potential effects of a major storm in different areas on large insurance companies and the industry as a whole. The report also compares forecasts for the 2012 hurricane season with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Colorado State University, Tropical Storm Research, Accuweather.com, and WSI Corp.

 

 

 

 

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Insurers Renounce Support for Heartland Institute, Hard Market is Here: Week in Review

By Caterina Pontoriero, PropertyCasualty360.com

May 14, 2012 • Reprints

Related Articles Unloading Confusion: When Is Property

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New York Fines 15 Insurers Over Mental Health Notices

May 10, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

New York regulators have fined 15 insurers $2.7 million for failing to notify small businesses they were eligible to buy special coverage for mental illnesses and children with serious emotional disturbances.

Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky says they are the first fines under Timothy’s Law, named for a teen who committed suicide after his parents were unable to obtain needed mental health treatment. The law took effect in 2007.

The law requires insurers give small employers the option of purchasing the mental health benefits when they buy or renew basic health insurance plans.

Insurers say the violations in 2009 and 2010 were unintentional and they have taken steps to prevent recurrences.

Fines include $1.3 million for Oxford, nearly $500,000 for Empire, and more than $200,000 each for HealthNet and MVP.

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: East NewsTopics: mental health benefits, Timothy's LawHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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