China Insurance Watchdog Warns Sector of Cash Crunch, Low Returns

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsSome Chinese insurers may face a cash crunch this year as many policies mature, and as the sector faces sliding investment returns and rising costs, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said.

Insurance companies need to broaden their investment channels to improve their returns, the CIRC said late on Thursday in its annual work report. The commission said it would also promote reform on the launch of infrastructure and real estate debt projects and introduce new types of investors.

“We see many more difficulties in ensuring steady growth of the insurance industry this year due to a comparatively lower investment return rate and the imminent peak of due payments on policies,” Xiang Junbo, the commission’s chairman said in the report.

With existing average investment returns for insurers being lower than the interest rate of five-year deposits, more policyholders are expected to surrender their policies — a trend which may cause a number of insurers to face a cash crunch, the CIRC said.

After enjoying an average growth of more than 20 percent in the past two decades, China’s insurance premium income slowed to single-digit growth in 2012.

The premium income increased 8 percent to 1.55 trillion yuan ($249 billion) last year, with health insurance premiums leading the growth, the commission said, while total assets of the insurance industry jumped 22.29 percent on year to 7.35 trillion yuan

View the Original article

Federal Watchdog Issues Report on Gas Pipeline Safety

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Federal regulators must account for response times in the data they collect from transmission operators on natural gas pipeline incidents, a congressional watchdog agency said this week.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which oversees natural gas, oil and hazardous liquids pipelines in the U.S., doesn’t require operators to fill out certain time-related fields when reporting incidents. Operators also have indicated they interpret the data fields in different ways.

“Reliable data would improve PHMSA’s ability to measure incident response and assist the agency in exploring the feasibility of developing a performance-based approach for improving operator response to pipeline incidents,” the report said.

The report comes a month after a 20-inch line owned by Columbia Gas Transmission ruptured in West Virginia, triggering a massive fire. The Dec. 11 inferno destroyed four homes and charred a section of Interstate 77 near Sissonville, about 15 miles north of Charleston. No one was seriously injured.

Federal investigators say it took Columbia Gas Transmission, a subsidiary of Texas-based NiSource Gas Transmission & Storage, more than an hour to manually shut off the gas that fueled the fire, which sent flames as high as nearby hilltops.

And in September 2010, gas continued to escape for nearly 90 minutes after a ruptured pipeline exploded in a suburb of San Francisco. The explosion, which was blamed on an inferior pipeline weld, killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes. Investigators said the damage would have been less severe had automatic valves been in place.

The National Transportation Safety Board has long advocated requiring automated valves that could shut off gas in such situations within minutes. Currently, manual valves are required at intervals

View the Original article

Federal Aviation Safety Regulators Ignore Whistleblowers: Watchdog

May 10, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The Federal Aviation Administration has repeatedly dragged its feet in responding to whistleblower complaints about safety problems and stronger oversight of air safety is needed, a government watchdog said.

Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, whose job is to protect from retaliation government employees who expose mismanagement or wrongdoing, detailed seven FAA whistleblower cases in letters to the White House and Congress. The cases, Lerner said, “paint a picture of an agency with insufficient responsiveness given its critical public safety mission.”

Some of the cases are years old, but Lerner said air traffic controllers and other FAA whistleblowers continued to point out safety problems after making their initial allegations because the agency failed to take promised actions to correct the problems. Other cases are more recent.

For example, Lerner said an investigation has confirmed most of the complaints made last year by Evan Seeley, a controller formerly assigned to one of the world’s busiest air traffic control centers on Long Island, N.Y. Among the allegations that were substantiated were that controllers slept in the control room at night, left shifts early, used personal electronic devices while on duty, used improper air traffic control procedures and engaged in work stoppages to gain overtime pay.

While the FAA has taken action to correct those problems, Lerner said another controller has recently made nearly identical allegations about a different air traffic control facility which she didn’t identify.

The FAA has one of the highest rates of whistleblower filings per employee of any government agency, Lerner said.

The counsel’s office has received 178 whistleblower disclosures from FAA employees since 2007, 89 of which related to aviation safety. Forty-four cases were referred to the Transportation Department for investigation, and all but five were substantiated.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: Federal Aviation Administration, whistleblowersHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

View the Original article