Archive for the ‘insurance specialists’ Category

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Insurance Brief: PA City Regulates Sledding

December 20th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance news, insurance specialists

It’s mid-December, and in places where there’s snow kids are playing in it, especially on sleds. (I remember sledding down the hill behind a local brewery when I was a kid – we always just managed not to end up in the busy cross street at the bottom. )

But a town in western Pennsylvania, citing concerns about liability raised by its insurance company, has voted to ban sledding in a popular local park, while also agreeing to lay out an actual sledding course in another.

The borough council of Beaver, PA, unanimously approved the restrictions, which banned sledding in a park that overlooks the Ohio River, but allows sledders to use a marked course in a different park, though they’re not allowed to start from the top of the hill.

According to the Beaver County Times, the sledding regulations also ban sledding after sunset, require children under twelve to wear helmets, and forbid metal and plastic disc sleds.

Councilwoman Shirley Sayers told the press that officials are merely trying to make the best of a bad situation, and that it was pending lawsuits against the borough for sledding incidents are what prompted the concerns from the insurance company.

I’m all for protecting kids, but is it just me, or is it really sad when something like sledding has to be regulated?

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Weather Affects Citrus Crops

December 16th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in business insurance, insurance news, insurance specialists

Cold weather affects us all, especially since all the extra time indoors in close quarters means we’re passing colds and flu back and forth with greater than average efficiency. Cold weather affects more than just people however, and, in fact, unseasonably cold weather in Florida – including ice storms – has caused citrus growers in the central part of the state to report crop damage.

Ray Royse, executive director of the Highlands County Citrus Growers Association in central Florida, said, “There was definitely some damage,” and added, “We did have some areas that had damage last night.” He continued, saying, “It’s too early to tell whether or not we’ll have significant fruit drop but certainly we’re going to have juice loss within some fruit in some areas.”

On Tuesday night, overnight temperatures in Highlands, the second-largest citrus-producing county in Florida, fell well below freezing. Florida growers are responsible for more than seventy-five percent for the U.S. orange crop, and roughly forty percent of the world’s orange juice supply.

Citrus is fairly fragile where temperature is concerned, and even four hours of temperatures lower than 28 degrees Fahrenheit can cause damage, which, according to Royce, is exactly what happened Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Royce elaborated, “I don’t think it’s to the level of being catastrophic tree killing cold anywhere, but we certainly are going to see some damage coming out of last night. It is not fruit frozen in every single grove. It is not small twig damage everywhere, but there’s definitely some blocks that are going to have damaged fruit.”

Highlands County Growers Association represents 185 members in the geographic center of Florida’s world-renowned citrus region.

Royce said his damage assessment, while still early, was based on contacting growers scattered across some 40,000 acres of orange groves across the region.

Most commercial citrus growers carry some kind of insurance on their crops, but even if their finances are relatively secure, it means the cost of orange juice may increase this year.

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Statewide Covers Medical Marijuana…Nationwide

December 14th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in business insurance, insurance news, insurance specialists

If you live in one of the fifteen states where medical marijuana is legal, and are concerned about the cost of being involved in the medical cannabis industry, you can rest a little easier. Last March, an insurance company based in Rancho Cordova, CA launched the first nationally available coverage designed specifically for the medical marijuana industry.

As reported in the Sacramento Bee, Mike Aberle, a commercial insurance agent with the firm – Statewide Insurance – and the national director of its new Medical Marijuana Specialty Division said, “Given the growth in the industry, I think it’s only a matter of time” before other states allow medical marijuana. Now that we can offer (services) in all 50 states, we can start the minute they go legal, without delay.”

According to Aberle, the program covers all of the various aspects of the medical cannabis industry, including dispensaries, general liability, workers’ compensation, equipment breakdown/damage, property/product loss (including pot spoilage), auto insurance (for vehicles that transport medical marijuana) and other related operations.

It was California voters who took the first steps into medical marijuana as an industry back in 1996 when they initially approved Proposition 215, which allows physicians to recommend cannabis for the treatment of cancer, chronic pain, AIDS, glaucoma, and other chronic illnesses which could benefit from treatment with cannabis. It’s estimated that there are now over 2,000 dispensaries in that state.

Aberle began forming Statewide’s Medical Marijuana Division (MMD) in 2007, and since then it has provided insurance to clients in California, Colorado, New Mexico and Rhode Island. Last year, he began expanding the national program. Premiums, he said, range from $650 – $25,000 a year, with different variables affecting the cost. A typical policy has premiums between $1,000 and $4,000.

A lobbyist with California Capitol Solutions in Sacramento told the Bee that Statewide’s MMD program is a “milestone in an industry that needs insurance protections for everyone in the distribution chain, from growers of the product to those that use it. He also said, “It’s very big, especially right now with public safety. Safety protocols need to be put into place.”

Del Real said that he represents medical cannabis dispensaries and other segments of the medical marijuana industry throughout California. He also said that the group with the fewest protections is the growers, asking, “How do we move out of residential areas and into commercial and industrial space?” He continued, “A lot of people are trying to get their minds around the cultivation of medical marijuana.”

According to Del Real, governments throughout California have decided numerous issues like whether insurance for dispensaries will be required. He said that there was, “… a big thing of catching up going on. Each community is passing its own laws, and that becomes problematic.”

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Cyber Crime on the Rise

November 16th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance fraud, insurance news, insurance specialists

If you think the concept of cyber-insurance is just a scam, consider this: last Tuesday (November 9th), the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) logged its two millionth complaint of online criminal activity.

The IC3 began operating in May, 2000, as a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, and it took seven years before it received its millionth complaint, which was logged on June 11, 2007. It took less than half that time to reach two million complaints but that may be partly because the IC3 is more visible, not only because the cyber crime rate is rising.

Cyber crime complaints made to the IC3 are then referred to local law enforcement agencies. So far, agencies around the world have been referred 757, 016 criminal complaints, the majority of which involve fraud, and the complainant suffering a financial loss. The total reported loss from these crimes is roughly $1.7 billion, with each complainant claiming about $500.

And how is this fraud being perpetrated? Well, most complainants point to identity theft, so be sure to add protection to your bank account or credit cards.

An earlier report from the FBI said that among Internet crimes, advanced fee scams that fraudulently used the FBI’s own name ranked number one.

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Connecticut Has New Interim Insurance Commissioner

November 15th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance news, insurance specialists

Days before the Connecticut state insurance department is due to hear a rate increase request from a major health insurance company, Governor M. Jodi Rell has appointed an acting insurance commissioner.

According to the Insurance Journal, Governor Rell’s representatives confirmed the official appointment of Barbara C. Spear on Friday.

Spear will take over the position from Thomas Sullivan, who has served as Connecticut’s insurance commissioner since April, 2007. Friday will be his last day on the job.

Sullivan agreed to a public hearing about a request from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to raise their insurance premiums. He said he scheduled the hearing, which will be on Wednesday, because of a series of rate increase requests from this insurer, which has a significant share of Connecticut’s market.

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California Insurance Commissioner Files Lawsuit to Prevent Iranian Investments

November 10th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance news, insurance specialists, world events

The Insurance Journal reported early this morning that Steve Poizner, California Insurance Commissioner, has stated that he is filing a lawsuit challenging last month’s decision from the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL) that his efforts to prevent insurance companies from investing in Iran constituted an “underground regulation.”

Poizner’s lawsut contests the OA’s analysis of this issue and also seeks to clarify his authority to address the issue at all. Attorney General Jerry Brown is representing the commissioner in the suit.

In a statement to the press, Poizner said, “I intend to ensure that any insurance company licensed in California is not doing business, in any way, with the Iranian regime. Insurance premium dollars that Californians pay should not end up supporting a regime that has shown time and time again its disregard for the concerns of the global community. The consensus is clear, as seen in the sanctions that the United Nations, the European Union, the U.S. government, and the California Legislature have imposed over the past two years — responsible businesses should not be doing business with Iran. Since companies doing business with Iran face financial risk, I have the authority to protect insurer portfolios from investments in those companies.”

The commissioner launched an initiative to identify Iran-related investments in insurers’ portfolios In June 2009, asking that the 1,300 insurance companies licensed in California identify all investments in companies doing business with the Iranian defense, energy and nuclear sectors. Fifty companies with ongoing business activities in Iran were identified by the Department of Insurance, and in the spring of this year, the commissioner requested a moratorium, beseeching insurance companies not to make any new investments in companies on the CDI list. More than 1,000 of them agreed to this.

Despite this, the Association of California Insurance Companies, the Association of California Life and Health Insurance Companies, the Personal Insurance Federation of California and the American Insurance Association grouped together to express their concerns with the law, and to file a petition with the OAL, because they believed the state insurance commissioner’s anti-Iranian investment rules constituted an “underground” regulation.

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Oklahoma Has New Insurance Commissioner

November 3rd, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance news, insurance specialists

Among several gubernatorial and congressional races that were decided in Tuesday’s election, there were also a few Insurance Commissioner positions up for grabs.

One such race was in Oklahoma, where insurance agent John Doak defeated incumbent Commissioner Kim Holland with approximately 54.5 percent of the vote.

Doak, a Republican who campaigned against the federal health insurance reforms which extend insurance coverage to millions more Americans than any plan his party had offered last year, cited his 20-year history as an agent and executive in the insurance industry as part of his campaign for this position.

The incumbent Holland, a Democrate, was appointed to her post by Governor Brad Henry in 2005, and won a full term the following year. She, too, was an insurance agent before becoming commissioner.

In part of the Republican sweep of the midwest, Oklahoma will also have a new governor next year. Mary Fallen will be the first women in Oklahoma’s history to serve in the governor’s office. Currently, she is a United States Representative from Edmond.

Her opponent, Jari Askins, a Democrat, currently serves as Oklahoma’s lieutenant governor.

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