Archive for the ‘world events’ Category

NFIP Renewed Again

December 29th, 2011 by Iris | 1 Comment | Filed in flood insurance, world events

Under yet another short-term consolidated appropriations bill, H.R. 2055, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and signed into law by President Obama on the last business day before Christmas, the National Flood Insurance Program has been renewed again – this time until May 31, 2012.

Had the bill not passed, or the President refused to sign it, the Program would have lost its authority to issue new flood insurance policies or renew existing policies, at midnight on December 23rd.

Representatives of the Big “I” – the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America – are pleased with the reauthorization, but continue to push for program reforms, and a long-term authorization for the program.

Speaking on behalf of fellow agents and brokers, Charles E. Symington, Jr., the senior vice president for government affairs with the Big “I,” said, “It is important to note that our work on this important issue is far from over and the next few months provide ample opportunity for Congress to pass long-term extension and reform legislation that provides the necessary certainty for consumers.”

He also pointed out that traditionally, program extensions were granted in five-year periods in order to help keep the market stable, but that in recent years such extensions have usually been in 30-day to six-month terms.

Big “I” vice president for government affairs, John Prible, also spoke about the reauthorization, saying, “Today’s extension, although greatly appreciated, is just a temporary patch.”

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Press Release: Disabled Workers Fleeing Job Market

April 13th, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in medical insurance, workers compensation insurance, world events

Senator Tom D. Harkin (D-Iowa) issued a press release yesterday morning, about the status of disabled employees in the American workplace.

Because we feel this issue is important, we are running the full text of the release:

WASHINGTON, April 12 — The office of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, issued the following news release:

This morning, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) gave the keynote address at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Corporate Disability Employment Summit. A longtime champion for people with disabilities, Harkin sponsored the Americans with Disabilities Act, and as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, he recently held a hearing to identify barriers to employment for people with intellectual disabilities and strategies that have successfully improved employment opportunities. Today, he sounded the alarm on a disturbing trend: more than two thirds of Americans with disabilities are without a job, and adults with disabilities are leaving the labor force during this recession at more than 10 times the rate of adults without disabilities. Harkin called on the CEOs and business owners in the audience to join him in his goal of increasing the number of disabled Americans in the workforce from 4.9 million today to 6 million in 2015.

“As we enter into the third decade of implementation of the ADA, my central priority is improving employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities. The ADA and the special education laws have combined to produce the best-educated population of people with disabilities in U.S. history. And yet, while the majority of them would like to be working, the shocking fact is that more than two thirds of Americans with disabilities are without a job. In fact, now that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting regularly on the employment situation for people with disabilities, we have strong evidence that it has gotten disproportionately worse for workers with disabilities in the last two years. According to BLS data, between March of 2009 and March of this year, the size of the disability workforce shrunk by 395,000 workers to about 4.9 million workers,” Harkin said in his remarks.

“When this drop is compared with broader labor force trends, you can see that more than one in three American adults who have left the labor force in the last two years have been people with disabilities. That means that, during this recession, adults with disabilities have been leaving the labor force at a rate more than 10 times the rate of adults without disabilities. This disturbing trend line has not received much attention from policymakers or the public. We need to recognize that it has a huge budgetary and social cost. For example, it has been accompanied by increases in applications for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, which have grown from an average of 200,000 new applications per month at the beginning of 2008 to an average of close to 250,000 per month by the end of 2010.

“If we work together, I believe we can set a realistic goal of increasing the number of adults with disabilities participating in the labor force from 4.9 million, today, to 6 million by 2015. Expanding the disability workforce by more than one million workers in four years is achievable if we get serious about making it happen.I want your ideas and I am asking for your collaboration so that our policies are producing real results on the ground–real results that become jobs for people with disabilities and a strong, talented and loyal workforce for businesses. If there are federal policies that are getting in the way of your efforts, I want to hear about those too so we can do something about them. Making a real impact on disability employment numbers is one of my top priorities and will remain so as long as I am in the Senate.”

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President Obama Signs Washington Disaster Dec

March 31st, 2011 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in flood insurance, wind insurance, world events

Yesterday afternoon, President Obama signed the federal disaster declaration ordering federal aid as a supplement to state and local recovery efforts Washington state.

The declaration applies to seven counties that were hit by severe winter weather in January of this year, that included flooding, mudslides and landslides. The counties affected are King, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lewis, Skagit, Skamania, and Wahkiakum.

Federal money is available to state and local governments for emergency work and to help repair or replace storm-damage facilities, on a cost-sharing basis.

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Alabama Has Been Paid, BP Says

November 11th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in business insurance, world events

Representatives of BP, the oil company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year, said it’s paid more than $657 million to the state of Alabama for claims, grands and recovery costs.

The petroleum company released those numbers among other updated figures earlier this week, and said that the largest chunk of money, roughly $420 million, went directly to individuals and businesses filing claims.

According to BP, almost $127 million was paid to people working in the Vessels of Oppurtunity program, in which boat captains and commercial fishermen helped recover the oil from the water. The company also said that $22 million was used to help the tourism industry in Alabama.

Last Friday, however, the head of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach tourism said that Baldwin County’s lodging revenues had fallen by 33%, costing them roughly $58 million.

Alabama governor Bob Riley recently chastised BP for its claims fund process, stating that it speeds up when a meeting is called to air complaints, but slows down again just after.

BP has not commented on the governor’s opinion.

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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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Florida Says Latest $25 million from BP Not Enough

June 11th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in insurance news, insurance specialists, world events

The state of Florida, the Insurance Journal reports, is unhappy with BP. Again. The troubled oil company brought $25 million more to Florida on Tuesday, but the reaction was not gratitude, but criticism.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist and three independently elected Cabinet members asked for more money from BP, and demanded it swiftly in order to help residents of their state recover business losses caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill which has been rapidly encroaching upon the Sunshine State’s coastline. The informed Bob Fryar, BP senior vice president, that time is of the essence, because thousands of local businesses are on the brink of failure.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink told Fryar, “I don’t think speed is in your vocabulary yet. People are just trying to survive.”

Governor Crist, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat as an independent, asked BP for more of everything: booms and skimmers to clean up slicks and sheen, money for cleanup, money for advertising, and claims offices in every coastal county in his state. “We demand it,” he said. “You’re a company with enormous resources.”

The most recent $25 million infusion from BP was targeted toward Florida’s costs of responding to the spill, and brings the total monies the state has already received from the company to $75 million. Before Tuesday’s meeting, Florida had already requested another $125 million.

Fryar, a petroleum engineer with 25 years of tenure at the London-based BP responded, saying, “We’re trying to make sure people with legitimate claims will be paid quickly. BP will pay all legitimate claims.”
He also said that BP had paid 18,500 of the 38,000 claims received to date.

The spill from the Deepwater Horizon explosion nearly two months ago in the Gulf of Mexico has threatened the tourism, fishing and hospitality industries in Florida. Tar balls washing ashore in the extreme western Florida Panhandle are also causing tourists to be dubious about the state as a wise choice of vacation destination this year.

Both Sink and Crist urged Fryar to have BP officials visit businesses hurt by the expanding spill.

“It’s no fun watching grown men cry,” Sink said. “That’s what I’ve seen.”

Attorney General Bill McCollum, who, like Sink, is hoping to succeed Crist as Florida’s governor in November, had very few positive remarks about BP’s handling of the crisis. “I don’t think you’ve done enough,” McCollum chastised the oil company. “There’s got to be more that you can be doing.”

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Preliminary Loss Estimates Announced for Chilean Quake

March 11th, 2010 by Iris | Comments Off | Filed in earthquake insurance, world events

Bermuda-based Everest Re Group has announced its preliminary loss estimate for exposures relating to the earthquake in Chile and the recent European windstorm known as Xynthia. The total? Earthquake: $225 million, Xynthia: $25 million. Representatives of the company told the press that the “…currrent estimates for these events are based on underwriters’ preliminary analyses and judgments, client input and discussion, event modeling and profiling of exposed limits.”

The company spokesperson elaborated, explaining, “Current industry loss estimates for the magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile range between $4 billion and $10 billion while the range of industry losses for the European Windstorm Xynthia is $2 billion to $4 billion. The Company expects it will be several months before relative clarity emerges with respect to its ceding companies’ underlying losses from these two events and as new information emerges these estimates may need to be adjusted.”

Joseph V. Taranto, Chairman and CEO Of Everest also commented, telling the press in a statement released yesterday: “We are extending our full support to our ceding company clients as they deal with the devastation caused by these events. Ours is a business of risk and we have ample capacity to absorb these losses. As such we are prepared to handle these claims in an effective and efficient manner.”

Meanwhile, insurance carriers with most of their policyholders here in the United States continue to urge consumers, especially those in known active fault areas, to purchase earthquake insurance sooner rather than later.

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