Risk & Insurance articles from August 2005

Risk & Insurance archives from August 2005

Oh Noe!
August 1, 2005... The next time Ohio employers see their workers' comp premiums shoot up, they might want to take a closer look at the goings-on in the Bureau of Workers' Compensation. From the looks of it, the bureau is treating some pretty big numbers like,...

Comp funds for jockeys.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2005... Editor's note: A story titled "Riding on the Edge," Risk & Insurance[R], June 2005, page 20, explored the difficulty of setting up workers' compensation insurance funds for jockeys injured in horse racing. Dear Editor: This problem...

Apologist or hyperbolist?(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the Editor)
August 1, 2005... Dear Editor: As a longtime reader of the magazine, I've previously noted your admiration for Mr. Greenberg. When he wants to turn on the charm, he certainly can do so. But isn't the appellation "the greatest businessman of the second half...

House standoff.(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... A U.S. House subcommittee chairman may be in a standoff with state insurance regulators over the State Modernization and Regulatory Transparency Act. After reviewing an April 22 National Association of Insurance Commissioners' report on the...

Spitzer a savior?(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... Three out of four executives and analysts surveyed at Standard & Poor's Corp.'s annual insurance conference in New York in June believed that the insurance industry will be better off because of increased disclosure resulting from New York...

Gallagher settles.(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. announced in May that it had reached a settlement with the Illinois attorney general and the director of insurance of Illinois regarding investigations into its compensation practices. The Itasca, Ill.-based brokerage...

RRGs on the rise.(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... Risk retention groups produced nearly $2.2 billion in premiums last year, according to an analysis by Pasadena, Calif.-based Risk Retention Reporter. The figure represents a 26.4 percent increase over last year and the third consecutive year of...

Safeguards lacking.(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... The United States is at risk for economic disruption if another major terrorist attack occurs, according to the new RAND Corporation study, "Trends in Terrorism." The researchers from RAND's Center for Terrorist Risk Management Policy suggest...

Hurricane risk.(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... Insurers may face a one in three chance of large hurricane catastrophe-losses in the United States during this hurricane season, a modeling vendor says. The firm based its analysis on past seasons' catastrophe-losses and the most recent 2005...

Tort questions.(NEWS & NOTES)
August 1, 2005... The debate over the tort litigation crisis is driven by hyperbole, faulty evidence and "secret" data, according to "The Frivolous Case for Tort Law Change," a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. The authors, economist Lawrence...

Banks gamble with opposite aproaches to the market; either way, they appear to have made a difference.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
August 1, 2005... In the financial services sector, two companies stand out for having upended conventional business models and having made a difference, this year's theme at the 77th annual meeting of the Insurance Accounting & Systems Association. For...

Back to the future of technology trends: the insurance industry is on a quest for the "Holy Grail" of technology--that will, basically, bring it up to date with the 21st century.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
August 1, 2005... To this end, insurers are demanding answers from IT vendors. What is today's hottest technology? What will be tomorrow's? According to analysts and vendors at the Insurance Technology Trends roundtable at this June's annual meeting of the...

Taking their slice out of the IT pie.(RISK STATS)
August 1, 2005... Policy administration systems are consuming the most investment dollars, according to a recent survey of risk and compliance officers at the annual gathering of ACORD-LOMA last May. How many of you have a 1-3 year IT budgeting plan? ...

'Coingate' rattles Ohio comp bureau; the story surrounding the missing millions is filled with enough intrigue, politics and white-collar crime to make for a sizzling suspense novel.(UPFRONT)
August 1, 2005... Since April, the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation has been caught in the eye of a storm of controversy--it's also been caught short of cash, to the tune of about $13 million, and then some. The Toledo Blade dubbed the scandal...

Risk & Insurance[R] rocks the house at ASBPE; takes top design honors.(UPFRONT)
August 1, 2005... The American Society of Business Publication Editors honored Risk & Insurance[R] with one of its top prizes for design at its 27th annual Awards of Excellence competition, which took place on June 21 at Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and...

Worth repeating from IASA 2005.(UPFRONT)
August 1, 2005... "People who report to their core IT can sometimes become propeller-heads." Bryan Blair, senior vice president, XL Capital, speaking during a CIO roundtable "Some of the (finite reinsurance) contracts can make your head spin." ...

Fighting over 'Canseco dollars'.(ALTERNATIVE RISK)
August 1, 2005... Insurance arbitration is usually staggeringly dull stuff, but lately it has become quite exciting. Not just because billions of dollars--the new black---hang in the balance, but because the stakes in one big dispute have been multiplied by a...

Navigating the Rocks of Dim.(WORKERS' COMP)
August 1, 2005... California passed a law in 2003 that endorsed treatment guidelines to govern health care for injured workers. This provision was further advanced in the large-scale reform package SB 899, passed in 2004. The nationwide consequences of this...

A call for reason this season.(THE LAW)
August 1, 2005... Florida residents and businesses have barely finished cleaning up the more than $22 billion in property damage inflicted by last year's brutal hurricane season, and already the National Weather Service is predicting a 2005 hurricane and...

Brokering on integrity: Integro, an ambitious new commercial brokerage headed by three former top Marsh executives, seeks to create a new kind of broker that will target the largest companies and the most complex risks. Integro's aim isn't to be the biggest, just the best.(Cover Story)
August 1, 2005... In May, following the Spitzer investigation of insurance broker Marsh Inc. and the subsequent settlement with the firm, three former top Marsh executives announced that they had raised $300 million to start a new brokerage firm that would go...

The fast track to better health: while disease management programs focus on the 20 percent of the workforce that drives 80 percent of health-care costs, population health management programs focus on the remaining 80 percent of employees who are currently healthy. The initiatives provide education and other programs to help healthy employees stay that way.(BENEFITS)
August 1, 2005... Health insurance, wellness and disease management programs often originate within HR departments. This makes obvious sense for a number of reasons. However, as the price of health care soars, more and more companies are asking their risk...

Risk floods the pipeline; America needs more natural gas. Other countries want to sell it to us. It's getting it here and into the pipelines that presents the risk, some of it physical but much of it political.(INDUSTRY RISK REPORT: OIL/GAS)
August 1, 2005... For proponents, imported liquefied natural gas represents a significant part of America's energy future. Opponents see the terminals and tankers that would be needed to handle those natural gas imports as giant bombs waiting to be set off by...

Brewing season for 'cane alchemists: this year's hurricane season may churn out even more storms than last year's historic season, according to forecasts. But predictions will mean squat to insurers if all these storms stay out to sea.(CATASTROPHIC RISKS)
August 1, 2005... After a brutal season last year, Mother Nature may be brewing some more overdue bad luck for the U.S. coastline this season. The present season, according to the most recent hurricane forecasts, could be a repeat of last year, if not worse....

AIRMIC 2005: offstage rumblings change the agenda; this year's conference of U.K. risk managers showed insurance buyers want brokers to come clean on remuneration.(RISK MANAGEMENT)
August 1, 2005... Themes and agendas for the coming year are as popular with organizations in the U.K. as they are in the United States. However, events have a nasty habit of hijacking attention so that planned discussions suddenly veer off to focus on an issue...

Honoring a former leader's worthy legacy: Risk & Insurance[R] renames a popular award program in honor of a former president who, nearly 100 years ago, urged Congress to pass the Federal Employers' Liability Act. In doing so, Theodore Roosevelt did his part to protect the interests of millions of working Americans and their families.(WORKERS' COMP)
August 1, 2005... Editor's note: For more than a decade, Risk & Insurance[R] magazine has bestowed an award on private-sector corporations and public entities in honor of their workers' compensation programs, with the intention of highlighting some of the...

Off to a slow start: offering federal exemptions to captives to encourage the administration of ERISA-regulated benefits has met an unexpectedly tepid response. Many companies are still interested in creating captives, especially if they can find simpler approval options.(SPECIAL REPORT: ALTERNATIVE RISK)
August 1, 2005... Last year, when the U.S. Labor Department approved an expedited procedure for granting exemptions to captives looking to administer ERISA-regulated benefits such as life insurance, disability or retiree medical benefits, many observers thought...

Out from behind the front: in the wake of a severe shortage of fronting insurers for captives a few years ago, more and more companies are trying to reduce their dependence on fronts--either by setting up risk retention groups or by writing business directly.(SPECIAL REPORT: ALTERNATIVE RISK)
August 1, 2005... Sutter Health, a not-for-profit health-care system based in Sacramento, Calif., has two captives, and neither one of them uses a front. Sutter's original captive, Sutter Insurance Services Corp., was formed in 1991, and it inherited its...

Untangling Web services: Web services for the insurance industry are maturing, and companies are taking a closer look at their applications for outsourcing certain functions. Some kinks in the system remain, in particular compliance. Carriers' best bet is to work with a trusted software vendor.(TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... With Web services, many industries, including insurance, are looking to realize their vision of virtual systems that locate, configure and invoke business services over the Web just as easily as they do internally within their own application...

Meet a man of rigor who can deliver; Michael Turcotte is not only director of risk management for one of Canada's largest media companies, he's also credited with being the brains behind RIMS Canada's Web strategy.(PROFILE)
August 1, 2005... When colleagues and peers think of Michael Turcotte, the 39-year-old risk manager in charge of managing risk for the media division of Quebecor Inc., they think of a bright and dedicated man whom they consider an inspiration to them--and to the...

Did Spitzer miss High Noon? Eliminating contingent commissions is a more complex directive than it seems on the surface. Many brokers and carriers are turning a deaf ear to the call for change, especially in the employee benefits arena.(AGENT/BROKER)
August 1, 2005... Last January, the obituaries read: "Contingent commissions dead." Eliot Spitzer, the quick-draw New York Attorney General, cut another notch in his pistol grip. Marsh, Aon, Willis and Gallagher--the top four insurance brokers--had all...

TPA buyers' guide.(Directory)
August 1, 2005... Below are paid listings of third-party administrators (TPAs) according to the types of claims they handle: health care; disability; workers' comp; managed care automation; software automation; property; marine/aviation; professional liability;...

State forms.(TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... The Insurance Accounting & Systems Administration trade group has announced the release of State Filing Express, a new software package to help agents meet state filing requirements by integrating company-specific statutory annual quarterly...

Billing.(TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... Accenture and SAP America Inc. have announced the launch of a software application targeted at insurance billing and payments management for midsize insurance companies. The latest software is comprised of business content and hardware and...

Document imaging.(TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... Penn National has upgraded its document management system using the latest version of software from technology vendor ImageRight, executives representing the companies have announced. The latest release, version 3.4, improves text-search, spell...

Property/casualty.(TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... A big Texas-based insurer has licensed the INSIGHT suite of property and casualty software from vendor Sapiens International Corp., the companies have announced. The first phase of the implementation of the software by the Texas Farm Bureau...

Webinars.(TECHNOLOGY)
August 1, 2005... Software vendor InsureWorx and IASA have also announced a joint program to develop and deliver insurance technology programs for IASA member companies, the vendor and the trade group have announced. The initiative will kick off with a series of...

Liability.(INSURANCE)
August 1, 2005... In response to Congressional action, The Harford Financial Services Group Inc. has modified its employee practice liability policies to protect employers from allegations of discrimination based on an employee's refusal to submit to genetic...

Property/casualty.(INSURANCE)
August 1, 2005... Church Mutual Insurance Company has licensed a Web-based property/ casualty policy management system from Insurity Inc. the vendor has announced. The system is replacing Church Mutual's old workers' compensation policy processing system, said...

Upcoming events.(PRODUCTS & SERVICES)(Calendar)
August 1, 2005... SEPTEMBER 8-10 National African-American Insurance Association Conference and Empowerment Summit The National African-American Insurance Association, dedicated to empowering African-American insurance professionals and increasing...