Consumer Reports agrees with the I.I.I. on the importance of differentiating between a home’s market and insured values, MSNBC.com reports:
I.I.I. president Bob Hartwig told MSNBC.com in this Monday, January 3, article that in many cases the cost of buying a home has decreased in recent years but the cost of insuring one has not necessarily followed because, “The price of homeowners’ insurance is based on the cost to repair or rebuild your home. The price of a home is based on the market value of that home and the land upon which it sits.” Tobie Stanger of Consumer Reports is quoted in the MSNBC.com story, supporting the I.I.I.’s key messages on this issue. The I.I.I. is pleased with this as we met with her several times last year on the topic.
The Wall Street Journal finds that stranger-owned life insurance market’s ‘collapse’ has prompted insurers to file lawsuits:
The secondary life insurance market expanded rapidly between 2004 and 2008 as thousands of elderly Americans sought quick income by taking out multimillion dollar life insurance policies to sell to investors, according to a Monday, January 3, article in The Wall Street Journal’s print edition (subscription required). Investors paid the premiums as long as the insured person lived through deals involving tens of billions of dollars in insurance. Now that the market has collapsed, the WSJ reports, insurers have filed hundreds of lawsuits seeking to cancel policies that they claim were used inappropriately as investment tools.
Dow Jones Newswire runs story on Insurance Research Council’s (IRC) New York no-fault study, which found widespread evidence of fraud, buildup:
Erik Holm’s Dow Jones Newswire article was posted on Tuesday, January 4, and appeared in Smart Money and The Wall Street Journal’s Metropolis blog, among many other outlets. IRC vice president David Corum was also interviewed on WSYR-TV in Syracuse, NY and National Underwriter after the IRC’s news release was issued on Wednesday, January 5. The release is attached.Seven auto insurers sue Toyota to recover monies they paid as part of manufacturer’s unintended acceleration cases:
The seven insurance companies filed separate but identical lawsuits on Thursday, December 30, in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking more than $230,000 from Toyota Motor Corp. to cover the cost of claims the insurers paid for accidents related to the unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles. In their complaints, the insurers contend that defects in Toyota vehicles caused the crashes. The lawsuits are similar to those filed in October 2010 by Allstate Corp. in the same court seeking $3 million in damages, according to this Wednesday, January 5, Wall Street Journal article (subscription required).University of Colorado, Boulder, study warns insurers and catastrophe modelers not to overplay current climate risks:
This Tuesday, January 4, New York Times ClimateWire article discusses new research suggesting that the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on losses caused by U.S. hurricanes may not be felt for well over a hundred years and that insurance companies that use climate change as a reason for raising premium prices could lose their credibility. “Hurricanes could become more prevalent with climate change, but the economic pain they deliver might not be recognized as man-made for 260 years,” Evan Lehmann writes. The research has been accepted by the journal Environmental Research Letters and can be accessed at www.eenews.net/assets/2011/01/04/document_cw_01.pdf.New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day tornadoes cause seven fatalities in Arkansas and Missouri; severe property damage in Mississippi:
Tornadoes that struck on either Friday, December 31, or Saturday, January 1, killed three people in Cincinnati, Arkansas, and four in St. Louis County, Missouri, while also causing heavy property damage in five Mississippi counties. National Underwriter (subscription required) offered details on these natural disasters in a Monday, January 3, online article.Mississippi has been the site of the most intense tornadoes in the U.S. over the past six decades:
Since 1950, Mississippi has endured far more of the worst tornadoes—those deemed EF4 or EF5, with paths of 100 miles or longer—than any other state, according to this Tuesday, January 4, article in The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS). Of the 22 tornadoes nationwide that met those criteria in the past 61 years, seven (32 percent) were in Mississippi. Nebraska and Alabama were next behind Mississippi with three each, and Indiana had two.Mississippi lawmakers are filing hundreds of bills on a number of issues, including insurance-related ones:
But most of the bills probably will not be passed into law because in most legislative sessions only a small percentage of bills are approved, according to this Sunday, January 2, article in The Biloxi Sun Herald. Several bills being introduced aim at providing relief from the post-Katrina insurance crisis, the article states. Representative Brandon Jones of Pascagoula and fellow House member Jessica Upshaw of Diamondhead are pushing those insurance bills. Rep. Jones is supporting one bill that has in the past been called the Insurance Policyholders Bill of Rights, which deals primarily with a clarification of the notion of the burden of proof in relation to policy exclusions. Other bills of interest to the insurance industry include measures allowing more liberal use of radar by law enforcement agencies to catch speeders and bills prohibiting or restricting cellphone usage while driving and texting while driving.Sarasota Herald-Tribune says modeler ready to revise upward its estimates of hurricane risk for inland Florida:
Risk Management Solutions (RMS), one of the top producers of software used by insurance companies to estimate hurricane losses, is to release a new computer model this spring that reportedly will raise RMS’s estimation of the risk of a hurricane in parts of Florida previously thought to be safe, according to this Thursday, December 30, Sarasota Herald-Tribune article. It is almost certain that the RMS model, if permitted by Florida regulators, will cause more homeowners insurance premium rate increases and policy cancellations, the reporter adds.
Herald-Tribune reports that more Florida policyholders are turning to ‘riskier home insurers’:
The Herald-Tribune published in its Friday, December 31, edition a look at the state’s property insurance availability and affordability trends, noting the turbulence in the marketplace throughout 2010. The paper created an interactive website to help Florida homeowners better gauge how insurers stack up against one another.
Florida appellate court says state law barring public adjusters from soliciting policyholders within 48 hours of a disaster violates the adjusters’ rights:
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel covered the story on Thursday, December 30, with reporter Julie Patel writing that this ruling was unwelcome news for outgoing chief financial officer Alex Sink, the original case’s defendant. The law has been on the books since 2008.California’s outgoing insurance commissioner touts state Office of Administrative Law’s (OAL) approval of regulations aimed at reducing instances of underinsurance:
On Friday, December 31, his last day in office, Commissioner Steven Poizner issued a news release regarding the OAL’s Tuesday, December 29, decision. The new regulations go into effect on June 27, 2011.Ohio’s top insurance regulator to step down from office on Friday, January 7:
Ohio Department of Insurance Director Mary Jo Hudson, an appointee of former Governor Ted Strickland, announced her decision in this Tuesday, January 4, news release.3.8-magnitude earthquake centered near Kokomo, Indiana, comes as surprise to many, including geologists:
There were no reports of injuries or property damage but the Thursday, December 30, quake, generated significant media attention because of its unusual locale. “This [central Indiana] is an area that’s had very little seismic activity, even looking at the historical record,” Michael Hamburger, program director of the Princeton Earth Physics Project at Indiana University told The Christian Science Monitor.
