To recap the issues raised during Wednesday’s conference call, here are some of the key media stories, and the messages we’re conveying.
Builders are prevailing over fire officials in state House debates over whether installing automatic sprinkler systems in residences should be mandatory:
For now, the builders have won the legislative battles in various state Legislatures, including Connecticut, home to the Hartford-based Associated Press reporter, Steven Singer, who filed this Sunday, April 3, piece. The I.I.I.’s Mike Barry worked with Singer on this story, and provided him with the statistic attributed to us in the text.Toyota wins the first unintentional acceleration case to go to trial:
A federal jury in New York ruled on Friday, April 1, that Toyota Motor Corporation was not liable in a civil lawsuit based on charges that the crash of a 2005 Toyota Scion was caused by the car’s unintended acceleration. The jury, which deliberated for less than an hour, agreed with Toyota that the accident was caused by the driver, rather than a problem with the floor mat. Bloomberg News filed this same-day story.AIR’s founder is inviting insurers to hear her in-person critique of Risk Management Solutions’ (RMS) latest catastrophe model:
Karen Clark, Applied Insurance Research (AIR’s) founder, issued a news release on Monday, April 4, inviting insurance company CEOs and insurer boards to have her deliver an in-person briefing on why the RMS February 2011 catastrophe model is flawed.Federal figures show P/C carrier employment figures continue to drop:
I.I.I. president Bob Hartwig’s analysis of the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) February 2011 data on insurance industry employment can be found in this PowerPoint presentation. Property/casualty carrier employment fell by 900 in February 2011 as compared to January 2011, dropping the overall national number to 458,800—the lowest figure in this category since the BLS began tracking it in 1990. The peak employment number for P/C carriers was reached in July 1999 (515,800), the federal government reports.
AAA report finds the average insurance cost for sedans fell 6.1 percent in 2010, to $968 a year, for low-risk drivers with excellent driving records:
Despite that positive trend, the average annual cost of owning and operating a sedan in the U.S. rose 3.4 percent in 2010 as compared to 2009. Your Driving Costs, the name of the AAA study, was based on 15,000 miles of driving per year. John Nielsen, AAA national director of auto repair, buying and consumer programs, told USA Today for this Monday, April 4, article that the year-to-year overall increase in owning and operating a vehicle reflected rapidly rising gasoline and tire prices, as well as vehicle depreciation costs.Irving, Texas-based Epsilon data breach affects millions of Americans’ email accounts:
The company announced on Wednesday, March 30, that a “subset of Epsilon clients’ customer data” was exposed by an unauthorized entry into Epsilon’s email system. The information obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names, they said. No other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk, Epsilon added in its statement, which was updated on Monday, April 4. Disney and Hilton were among the high-profile companies affected. The I.I.I.’s Claire Wilkinson discussed the potential insurance repercussions of the issue in this Wednesday, April 6, Terms + Conditions blog item.
Smart Money readying a story on what components factor into a homeowners insurance premium:
AnnaMaria Andriotis of Smart Money spoke this week with the I.I.I.’s Hartwig about homeowners insurance premium cost drivers. The I.I.I. is aware that she has tried to speak directly with a number of member companies about the issue as well.
AARP Bulletin columnist is investigating whether a better credit-based insurance score usually results in lower auto insurance premiums:
Sid Kirchheimer, author of the AARP Bulletin’s ‘Ask Sid’ column, has found that the answer is generally yes, and that not all states allow credit-based insurance scores as a rate-setting criterion. The Philadelphia based writer is at 610-666-7703, and his email is sidkirchheimer@comcast.net.
Nine fatalities, more than half of them in Georgia, are linked to tornadoes, and severe weather, in multiple states:
The NBC Nightly News broadcast on its Tuesday, April 5, program a report from Ellijay, Georgia, a community situated two hours north of Atlanta. The segment discusses how deadly windstorms swept through a number of states on Monday, April 4.
U.S. Transportation Secretary schedules Monday, April 18, summit on pipeline safety in D.C.:
Secretary Ray LaHood made the announcement during a Monday, April 4, appearance in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a community where five died after a natural gas explosion in February 2011. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s news release mentioned the September 2010 blast in San Bruno, California, too, as did this same-day Reuters story.U.S. House subcommittee passes five-year National Flood Insurance Program extension in a voice vote:
The details on the advance of House Resolution 1309, which calls for extending the NFIP through September 2016, are in the McClatchy Newspaper story on the subcommittee’s Wednesday, April 4, mark-up session.South Florida Sun-Sentinel explores whether overseas disasters could reduce the global reinsurance capital pool:
The I.I.I.’s Hartwig told reporter Julie Patel that this possibility has been mentioned by a number of reinsurers. Others quoted in Patel’s story contend there is still sufficient capital and reinsurance prices will be remain flat. Reinsurance prices are also based in part on the decisions by Florida insurers on what to cover and how much reinsurance to purchase, Hartwig noted.
New TV pilot being filmed in Florida later this month is called ‘Workers Comp’:
Miami Herald’s Money Editor is no longer with the newspaper:
Terence Shepherd said in his farewell email that his successor is Jay Ducassi, who can be reached at 305-376-3557.
San Francisco Chronicle reports scientists are five years away from having an early-warning quake system up and running in California:
Japanese residents generally had 60 seconds to prepare for the Friday, March 11, quake/tsunami because of an early-warning system that had been established in that country, according to this Wednesday, April 6, front-page story in the Chronicle. No such system currently exists in California, the story notes, and getting one online statewide will take millions of dollars, experts say.
Dallas Morning News says Texas’ homeowner insurers showed a much higher level of profits in 2010 as compared to previous year:
This front page story in the Saturday, April 2, Dallas Morning News is based on an annual Texas Department of Insurance report. The strong homeowner insurer results are attributed to the absence of weather catastrophes last year, although the reporter downplays the difference between an insurer’s combined ratios, which reflects all of a company’s expenses, and pure loss ratio, which reflects only insured losses.
Mississippi wind pool’s 46,000 policyholders will not see their premium rates increase:
That is according to this Thursday, March 31, article in The Biloxi Sun Herald. Reporter Anita Lee pegged her story to an interview with Joe Shumaker, director of Mississippi’s wind pool, who told the reporter that the pool has finalized a reinsurance purchase that will cost the pool the same price in 2011 as it paid 2010: $815 million in coverage for $69 million.
Michigan’s insurance commissioner has op-ed published; outlines ways to reform the state’s no-fault system:
“Unlike in Medicaid, Medicare and workers compensation, our auto insurance system doesn’t control costs by requiring uniform payment of fees,” wrote Commissioner Ken Ross, in a Friday, April 1, editorial in The Detroit Free Press. “This means that fees are negotiated on a case-by-case basis, with auto insurers invariably paying more, which results in higher auto insurance rates for drivers. A uniform fee schedule has worked well in the workers compensation arena and would help eliminate delays in claims processing and reduce fraudulent overbilling of auto insurance claims.”Arizona Supreme Court refuses to set aside ‘family purpose doctrine’ in case involving a teenager and vehicle accident liability:
The Associated Press filed a Tuesday, April 5, story on the ruling, which generated a call to the I.I.I. seeking an Arizona-based source from William Pitts, a reporter with KPNX 12 News in Phoenix, an NBC affiliate. The reporter’s contact information: wpitts@12news.com, 602-694-2602.Former New York Post reporter writes book on the events leading up to the federal government’s intervention into AIG’s operations:
Author Roddy Boyd is urging the book-buying public to purchase his just-published Fatal Risk: A Cautionary Tale of AIG’s Corporate Suicide (John Wiley & Sons, 2011).
United States ranks second among the five countries with the highest number of vehicles per 1,000 people:
The International Road Federation found that Monaco was at the top of the list (863 vehicles per 1,000 people), followed by the U.S. (809), Iceland (767), Luxembourg (747) and New Zealand (733).
