SYNOPSIS ALL INDUSTRY CONFERENCE CALL August 17, 2011

 

If there is a subject you would like to see addressed on Wednesday, August 24, please email Mike Barry at michaelb@iii.org.

 

On Monday, August 29, and Tuesday, August 30, the I.I.I.’s Bob Hartwig and Bill Davis will be visiting with the editors and business writers at the Springfield (MO) News-Leader and The Joplin Globe to discuss the insurance industry’s response to the tornadoes that struck Missouri on Friday, April 22 (St. Louis), and Sunday, May 22 (Joplin). Additional media opportunities are being scheduled for the I.I.I. in the area during the week of August 29-September 2; we will provide details when they are finalized.

 

The I.I.I.’s Hartwig told Mobile Press-Register reporter Jeff Amy in an interview on Tuesday, August 16, that 475 complaints, the number on file at the Alabama Department of Insurance, constitute less than one-half of one percent of the 100,000-plus insurance claims that have been filed to date because of the April 2011 tornadoes in northern Alabama. Renee Carter of the Alabama Insurance Information Service has also been working closely with Amy on this story.

 

The Wall Street Journal’s Leslie Scism has reached out to the I.I.I., and is gathering information about the State Fair’s insurance coverage, and who the liable parties might be.  National Underwriter (subscription required) already explored the potential insurance repercussions of the event. In a related development, the Indiana State Fair announced on Tuesday, August 16, that it had hired Thornton Tomasetti, a major engineering firm, to investigate why the concert stage was toppled by fierce winds on Saturday night, August 13, this Wednesday, August 17, WSJ print edition article (subscription required) reports.  CNN’s American Morning program broadcast footage of the scene last weekend at the State Fair.

The SSA receives 2.8 million death reports each year but “about 14,000—or one in every 200 deaths—are incorrectly entered into its Death Master File,” this Wednesday, August 17, CNNMoney.com article states, citing the findings of a recent investigation by the SSA’s Inspector General. The SSA’s Death Master File was cited in this May 2011 California Department of Insurance (CDI) news release on the CDI’s investigation into alleged non-payment of life insurance benefits (see paragraph four).

The I.I.I.’s Steve Weisbart and Jeanne Salvatore briefed ABC news writer Colleen Curry (Phone: 212-456-7222) on the types of insurance policies a traveler might secure before leaving on a trip as ABC prepared a follow-up to this Wednesday, August 17, Good Morning America (GMA) report on the disappearance of Robyn Gardner, a Maryland resident, in Aruba. GMA said Gardner’s traveling companion, now in police custody in Aruba, may be listed as the beneficiary of an insurance policy that would pay out in the event of her death, according to FBI sources cited by ABC.

Elianne González, the I.I.I.’s Hispanic Media Relations consultant, gave a live, six-minute interview on the Thursday, August 18, broadcast of Dinero, one of CNN en Español’s highest-rated programs. González discussed, from a consumer’s perspective, how to save money on auto insurance premiums, and why auto insurers charge teen drivers more than they do other motorists.

Kevin Allenspach (kallenspach@stcloudtimes.com) is examining how/why the average Minnesota homeowners insurance premium grew 90 percent between 2000-2007 (to $800 per annum from $420). The I.I.I.’s Mike Barry, who worked with the reporter on the story, also sent Allenspach a copy of Property Insurance Report’s February 10, 2010, edition, which had a lengthy article illustrating how Minnesota’s homeowners insurers have continued to lose money, despite the premium rate hikes.

The University of New Orleans’ campus has apparently been restored to its pre-Katrina condition whereas Southern University of New Orleans’ physical plant has not, according to sources pitching a prospective story to CNN.com’s Christopher Lett (Christopher.lett@turner.com).  CNN’s questions: is that the case and, if so, why the disparity?  Lett’s research prompted him to contact the I.I.I. in an effort to explore the risk management practices at Louisiana State University (which oversees the University of New Orleans) as compared to the Southern University system, the entity under which Southern University of New Orleans operates.

 

Matt Dunning of Business Insurance is filing the story. Dunning will likely cover some of the issues explored in Claire Wilkinson’s Wednesday, August 10, I.I.I. blog post on the matter.

Commissioner Kevin McCarty’s Tuesday, August 16, PowerPoint presentation came as part of Governor Scott’s Cabinet meeting in Tallahassee. Slide #8 shows how the number of auto crashes has consistently dropped in Florida since 2005, whereas personal injury protection (PIP) claims payouts have increased dramatically in the past three years (see slide #9).

U.S. pedestrians are most at risk when walking in and around Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami, according to this front page New York Times story on Tuesday, August 16.

 

Nancy Baily, a former president and CEO of Travelers of Florida, and Rob Wallace, a civil and environmental engineer, are CFO Jeff Atwater’s choices to serve on the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation’s board, according to this Tuesday, August 16, news release. The House Speaker and Senate president have already made their two appointments to the Citizens board but Governor Rick Scott has not as yet made the two selections to which he is entitled, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

 

The Birmingham News reported on Tuesday, August 16, that representatives of Knauf Plasterboard (Tianjin) Company Limited of China (KPT) were recently in Birmingham, Alabama, inspecting homes containing tainted drywall manufactured by KPT. KPT will soon determine which homes to accept into its remediation program, allowing eligible homeowners to rebuild their residences free of charge.

 

About 850,000 homeowners whose properties fall within State Responsibility Areas (SRAs), rural parts of California where CAL FIRE is responsible for fire prevention and suppression, will be assessed an annual fee of $150 effective January 1, 2012, in accordance with a new state law. CAL FIRE’s board is convening in a special session on Monday, August 22, at 9 a.m., in Sacramento to make sure the new revenue generated by this fee is allocated toward CAL FIRE’s fire suppression operations, rather than its fire prevention programs, the Associated Press reports.

The Tuesday, August 16, death of a 62-year-old Toms River, New Jersey, woman on Interstate 95 in Westchester County, New York, generated widespread media coverage and prompted New York City’s NBC affiliate to consider filing a segment sometime soon on the highway crash-avoidance tactics taught in the region’s defensive driving schools.

New York City and its suburbs had nearly eight inches of rain fall on Sunday, August 14, a new single-day record, according to The New York Daily News. The deluge is likely to boost the business of forensic meteorologists who testify in court about extreme weather, which often results in legal proceedings over property damage, according to this Tuesday, August 16, article in The New York Times. 

The headline of this Saturday, August 13, Free Press article was ‘Tree owners, landscapers not comforted by DuPont’s pledge to repair herbicide’s tree damage,’ and the article includes quotes from the I.I.I.’s Barry about the insurance policies that are traditionally purchased by landscapers and arborists.

The I.I.I.’s Hartwig and Daniel Schwarcz, a University of Minnesota law school professor who has charged that most homeowners insurance policies cover fewer perils today than they did in the past, are both quoted in this Tuesday, August 16, Review-Journal article on homeowners insurance policy language. 

Meanwhile, Amy Parks, chief counsel for Nevada’s Insurance Division under then-Commissioner Brett Barratt, is now the state’s acting insurance commissioner. Commissioner Barratt resigned effective Friday, August 12, according to this news release.

BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company, Chartis and Zurich have submitted bids to provide West Virginia’s state agencies with workers compensation insurance and risk management services, according to this Friday, August 12, article in the Charleston Daily Mail. The winning bidder will begin providing coverage under a new contract which takes effect in October 2011, the story reports, while also noting that BrickStreet, the state’s current workers comp insurer, was created under a West Virginia state law in 2006 that privatized the state’s workers’ comp system.

What Carriers Need to Know About Growing the Midsize Insurance Company is a one-hour (2 to 3 p.m., ET) Webinar A.M. Best is conducting on Tuesday, August 30. Midsize insurers are defined as those employing anywhere from 50 to 1,000 individuals, and the panelists will include the I.I.I.’s Weisbart, the institute’s chief economist, as well as Stuart Henderson, president and CEO, Western National Insurance Company, Douglas Dirks, president and CEO, Employers Holdings, Inc. and Wally Bitaut, senior executive vice president, enChoice, Inc. Registration is free.

 

 

–The I.I.I.’s press release from earlier this month, Credit 101: Send Students Off to College With a Plan For Managing Debt and Building a Solid Credit History, is still being tweeted about and shared on Facebook this week.  The topic of student loan debt is an increasingly important story as more young people accumulate a greater amount of debt in an economy where getting a job after graduation can be difficult.

 

–The Terms and Conditions blog post from the I.I.I.’s Claire Wilkinson on Wednesday, August 17, was about “Disaster Proofing Social Media,” and it was immediately picked up on Twitter by traditional journalists and social media writers.  Wilkinson’s article explores about how people have used social media tools to organize and incite violent acts, citing as examples the recent London riots and flash-mob activities in U.S. cities such as Philadelphia and Cleveland.  Does the government have the right to hack into, and even shut down, these social media tools as a way to prevent violence, analysts wonder. 

 

–With the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, the I.I.I. has released a video entitled, Ten Years Later: Dr. Robert Hartwig Discusses the Insurance Impact of 9/11.” This video features Dr. Hartwig speaking about his personal remembrances of that day and also the immediate and lasting impact the terror attack has had on the insurance industry.  The video is already receiving attention on YouTube and being picked up in Twitter feeds. 

 

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