Ratings Roundup: New India Assurance, South China Insurance

New India’s risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Best’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR), remained strong in fiscal year 2011-2012, which is attributable to New India’s initiative to improve its underwriting results. The company’s capital and surplus stood solid at INR 232 billion

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South Dakota Cheese Company Settles Discrimination Charge

December 21, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A South Dakota cheese making company has agreed to pay $85,000 to settle a sex discrimination charge.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says Milbank-based Valley Queen Cheese Factory has agreed to pay the settlement to two female applicants rejected for the position of milk hauler.

The EEOC says the company refused to hire the women for the milk hauler positions and had a history of staffing the position exclusively with men.

In addition to the settlement, the company agreed to provide anti-discrimination training to all employees and expand its recruiting.

Valley Queen Cheese Factory denies that it discriminated against women. The company says rather than fight through litigation, it decided it was best to settle the charges.

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Midwest NewsTopics: settlement, sex discrimination charge, South Dakota, Valley Queen Cheese Factory, workplace biasHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Study Says South Dakota Agriculture Has $21B Impact

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

An associate professor at South Dakota State University says agriculture and related industries had a $21.4 billion impact on South Dakota’s economy in 2010.

Gary Taylor, an associate professor of economics, says the impact includes more than $8.3 billion in direct agricultural production, $3.4 billion in inputs supplied by businesses and nearly $1.7 billion from increased household spending.

Agricultural processing and manufacturing added more than $8 billion in economic activity.

Taylor says agriculture’s total $21.4 billion economic impact makes agriculture the largest single sector in South Dakota’s economy. He says agriculture makes up about 19.8 percent of the state economy’s total output.

 

Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Midwest NewsTopics: $21.4 billion impact, agriculture and related industries, South Dakota State UniversityHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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South Dakota Will Not Run its Own Health Insurance Exchange

September 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

South Dakota will not set up its own health insurance exchange, instead deferring to the federal government to operate and pay for a key component required by the federal health care overhaul, Gov. Dennis Daugaard said.

President Barack Obama’s health care law requires that each state have such an exchange, an online marketplace where patients and small businesses can shop for health insurance among competing plans. The federal government will directly operate and fund exchanges in states that choose not to operate their own.

Daugaard said South Dakota will join other states that have chosen not to run their own exchanges. About half the states apparently will let the federal government run exchanges, at least initially.

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South Carolina Emergency Officials Study Sandy for Lessons

November 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

Emergency officials on the South Carolina coast are looking at Superstorm Sandy to try to learn ways to better prepare for future storms.

Horry County emergency management director Randy Webster has been looking at the impact of Sandy, The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported.

The storm hit the East Coast on Oct. 29, causing problems from North Carolina to Maine. More than 100 deaths were reported, most from drowning in the storm surge. The storm had moved by Myrtle Beach two days earlier, far offshore.

Webster has considered what would have happened if Sandy had hit the area.

“The immediate coastal impacts would be just as catastrophic, but when you get into that larger infrastructure issue we don’t have the same issues,” he said.

The Grand Strand would not face the same problems with damage to the transportation network, Webster said. The concentration of the population is also much less than New York.

The storm would have been similar to Hurricane Hugo in 1989 as far as the storm surge, up to 13 feet, he said. But Sandy lacked Hugo’s winds.

“There’s more work to be done to recognize that storm surge needs to be at the forefront and not the category of the hurricane that represents the wind speeds,” Webster said.

Storm surge impacts have been studied for Horry and Georgetown counties. Study results for the rest of the state are expected to be ready before the 2013 hurricane season that begins in June, said Sam Hodge, Georgetown County’s emergency management director.

Both men worry about complacency, since Hugo was the last major storm to hit South Carolina.

“As prepared as we think we are, we don’t know until it actually happens,” Hodge said. “There’s the unknown of will the people actually evacuate? Will we have a death toll with people failing to evacuate like they did up there?”

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Southeast NewsTopics: disaster preparedness, South Carolina, storm losses, Superstorm SandyHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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South Dakota Town Hit Hard by Fires; Damage Costs Top $1.3M

October 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

As Stephanie Bowers sifted through the charred remains of her mother’s books, she paused and cried. Bowers’ mother, Cheryl Roop, 59, died in a trailer home fire in Mitchell, S.C. early on Sept. 29.

Now living in Missoula, Mont., Bowers drove to Mitchell when she heard about the fire. Family members were able to retrieve some mementos of her mother’s life, which Bowers said has provided some small comfort.

Scenes like that have been all too common this year in Mitchell.

Fires caused an estimated $1,390,876 in property damage in the city through August, already more than five times last year’s total of $254,365, according to monthly reports prepared by the Mitchell Fire Division. In that same time period, the total number of fires, 62, already eclipses last year’s total of 57, the reports say.

And those numbers don’t yet include last month, when two homes were destroyed by fire. Another number not reflected in the reports is the two people who have died in fires this year.

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Best Agency to Work For: South Central

October 4, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

This year six agencies in all received top honors as a Best Agency to Work For. The Best Agencies to Work For in 2012 include: Bryan Insurance Agency, Graham, Texas; Meyer & Cook Insurance, Walnut Grove, California; Walker Myers Insurance & Risk Management, Austin, Texas; Herbie Wiles Insurance, St. Augustine, Florida; Hausmann-Johnson Insurance, Madison, Wisconsin; American Insurance Services, Clark, New Jersey.

Insurance Journal wishes to thank the many customer service representatives, account executives, producers, managers and other agency staff who took the time to nominate their independent insurance agency in this year’s survey.

Right People, Right Fit Makes a Great PlaceAustin, Texas
Walker Myers Insurance

Starting a new business in a healthy economy is a challenge. Starting a new business

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Employer Costs for Employees Lowest in South, Highest in Northeast

September 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle3 Comments

Total employer costs for employees in private industry ranges from $26.14 per hour in the South to $32.98 in the Northeast.

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the same costs are $28.06 in the Midwest and $30.01 in the West.

Overall, compensation costs among private industry employers in the United States averaged $28.80 per hour worked in June 2012. Wages and salaries, at $20.27 per hour, accounted for 70.4 percent of these costs, while benefits, at $8.52, made up the remaining 29.6 percent.

The costs ranged within each region, with total compensation costs of $24.44 in the East South Central division to $33.47 in New England.

BLS used compensation data from June 2012. The agency measures the average cost to employers for wages, salaries and benefits per employee hour worked. Benefits include health, life and disability insurance; workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, Social Security and Medicare; and paid leave including vacation, holiday and sick days.

The data cover private industry only and exclude self-employed and farm and private household workers. The costs were collected from a sample of 47,400 occupations from about 9,500 establishments in private industry.

Regional Costs

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South Dakota’s Northern Plains Insurance Declared Insolvent

September 24, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A Watertown, S.D., insurance company has been placed into liquidation by state insurance regulators.

A liquidation order issued by the South Dakota Division of Insurance for Northern Plains Insurance Co. was approved on Sept. 18 by Sixth Circuit Court Judge Mark Bennett.

Northern Plains, a high risk auto insurer, is insolvent, according to the liquidation order.

Northern Plains admitted the insolvency and waived service and process notice, the judge noted.

Financial statements submitted by Northern Plains to South Dakota Insurance Director Merle Scheiber showed the company’s

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Court Blocks South Carolina’s Discriminatory Voter ID Law for 2012 Election

American Civil Liberties Union American Civil Liberties Union

Because freedom can’t protect itself.

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Drought Area Expands in Northern U.S., Eases in South

September 21, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsThe worst drought to hit the United States in a half century expanded in the upper Midwest and northern Plains states in the past week due to warmer- and drier-than-normal weather, but loosened its grip on some central and southern areas of the country.

Nearly 65 percent of the contiguous United States were under at least

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South Carolina Weighs Sprinkler Mandate for New Homes

May 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The debate over whether all new homes should have fire sprinklers is heating up in South Carolina.

The South Carolina Building Code Council is considering whether to adopt the International Residential Code requiring sprinklers in all new homes.

The National Fire Protection Association has launched a statewide ad campaign featuring commercials and billboards in favor of the requirement. Relatives of fallen firefighters and burn victims speak in favor of sprinklers.

The Home Builders Association of South Carolina agrees that sprinklers make people safer. But the group says that putting in sprinklers in a new home is a decision that should be up to homeowners.

Whether the code is adopted will ultimately be decided by the General Assembly.

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: Southeast NewsTopics: home sprinklers, South Carolina building codeHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Nationwide Responds to Storms in the South

In response to the severe storms that affected the South at the end of April, Nationwide Insurance has set up several relief stations.

Nationwide knows that when an event like this happens, you want to get your life back to normal as soon as possible. Read about our efforts to repair the damage, our donation to the Red Cross, and how to report a claim if you’re a policyholder with storm damage.

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