Risk & Insurance articles from December 2005

Risk & Insurance archives from December 2005

Being green.
December 1, 2005... Rest assured the daylight of transparency has yet to penetrate the privilege-packed bunker known as The Greenbrier. At a session of the 92nd annual meeting of the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers at the posh resort in White Sulphur...

New Greenberg venture.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... Former Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. Chairman Jeffrey Greenberg is looking to raise $1 billion to fund Aquiline Capital Partners LLP, a new investment company. Greenberg and New York-based Venturion Capital are planning to raise the money in a...

Prettejohn moves on.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... Nick Prettejohn, chief executive of Lloyd's of London, will leave at the end of the year to become chief executive of U.K. operations for London-based life insurer Prudential PLC. Luke Savage, director of finance and risk management at Lloyd's,...

Marsh in Olympics deal.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... Marsh Inc. has been selected to provide insurance consulting and risk management services for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Together with China Sports Insurance Broker Co. Ltd., Marsh will provide loss prevention and risk control...

And litigation for all.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... Nearly 90 percent of U.S. corporations are engaged in some type of litigation, and the average company balances a docket of 37 U.S. lawsuits, according to a survey. For $1 billion-plus companies in the United States, the average number of eases...

Global risk failure.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... Despite spending more time on risk management, boards at global businesses are failing to identify and manage emerging risks, according to new research published by Lloyd's. Research showed that while boards are assessing a wider range of risks...

P/C profit recorded.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... The U.S. property/casualty industry recorded an underwriting profit of nearly $13.2 billion during the first six months of 2005, as the industry reaped the rewards of a hard market. Robust operating results drove the industry's surplus base up...

Finite rules in U.K.(NEWS & NOTES)
December 1, 2005... The U.K.'s Financial Services Authority is proposing new rules requiring insurers to provide more detail on their use of finite reinsurance contracts. The new rules take effect in April. --Compiled by staff from news and wire reports

Upcoming events.(Calendar)
December 1, 2005... DECEMBER 7-9 Carolina Captives Scheduled to Meet The South Carolina Captive Association Inc. will hold its 6th Annual Educational Conference in Charleston, S.C., at the Charleston Place Hotel. The event will combine useful...

Spitzer shock still reverberates in Europe: one year on, many still feel Europe needs more progress on transparency.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
December 1, 2005... The ripples from Eliot Spitzer's broadside against brokers were very evident when the Federation of European Risk Management Associations held its Forum in Lisbon, Portugal. FERMA announced back in February 2005 that it was working with the...

Caught red-handed: a juicy fraud case draws attention to federal crop insurance, but recent research may be more telling.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
December 1, 2005... Two North Carolina tomato farmers were recently sentenced in a federal court to 76 months and 66 months imprisonment, respectively, for throwing ice cubes at their tomato crops--and for defrauding the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and...

Forecasting the face of terrorism: while the TRIA debate heats up, terrorism experts and modelers say they've got a backstop of their own--the odds on the terrorist threat.(UPFRONT)
December 1, 2005... About 81 percent of all suicide-bomb attacks since 1968 have occurred after Sept. 11, according to Bruce Hoffman, corporate chair in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency at RAND. The war in Iraq is churning out the next generation of...

Carriers with the most to lose.(RISK STATS)
December 1, 2005... Loss estimates from carriers and reinsurers due to Hurricane Katrina. $2.99 B * (includes Hurricane Rita) Berkshire Hathaway Inc. $2.47 B (estimate) Lloyd's of London $1.2 B Swiss Re $1.16 B XL Capital Ltd. ...

Worth repeating.(UPFRONT)
December 1, 2005... "Disclosure is in the best interest of all, consumers, risk bearers and brokers. There will be differences on how to do that, but disclosure will continue to happen." --J. Hyatt Brown, chairman, Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, at...

No crapping out with Nevada captives: Nevada approved its biggest captive program yet for MGM Mirage. Who'll try their luck next?(UPFRONT)
December 1, 2005... MGM Mirage is establishing a captive insurance program in the Silver State, the Nevada Department of Business and Industry's Division of Insurance announced in September. The new captive will be the largest in Nevada, and the program--the 45th...

Katrina's lawsuit surge: a legal battle to force insurers to pay for flood damage from Hurricane Katrina could cost the industry billions.(UPFRONT)
December 1, 2005... Instead of helping residents, the legal strategy of Mississippi could backfire and do the state more harm than good. At worst, the suits could end up driving insurers out of the region, bankrupt some smaller, regional firms and impair...

Cat Kat's slap of cap markets.(ALTERNATIVE RISK)
December 1, 2005... Hurricane Katrina, the greatest insured loss in history, laid bare more than the Gulf Coast. It also revealed the workings of various corners of the global capital markets. The storm demonstrated what an extraordinary business insurance,...

Casting a new safety net.(WORKERS' COMP)
December 1, 2005... American employers and insurers need a more credible way to gather and share intelligence in the hour of disaster. Community-oriented, publicly funded emergency response is not adequate to fill this need. A new private-sector resource--fast,...

The long-term care debate.(BENEFITS)
December 1, 2005... Football is out as a hot topic around the office. Baby boomers are talking more than ever about the costs of caring for senior parents and their own future needs for expensive long-term care. Whether employers like it or not, the conversation...

Shadow ministers: a little-known group of insurance buyers operates in the shadows of the better-known risk management and insurance trade organizations. This restrictive group, known as M200 for "Multinational 200," shares best practices and trade ideas, without the interference of brokers. Novices need not apply.(Cover Story)
December 1, 2005... Quite simply, the members of M200 want to improve the way the risk management, insurance and reinsurance worlds operate. For 14 years, this group has met twice a year, alternately in the United States and Europe, for almost three days at a pop,...

Shouldering the weight of duty: where are companies going to continue to do business, once they get back on their feet? Risk managers, duty-bound to rethink their business-continuity strategies, could cut and run to the nation's safest cities. Or they could stay put and rebuild the business in a very different way.(THE 10 SAFEST CITIES)
December 1, 2005... It's a question many people want to ask but are afraid to say on the record: Why the hell would businesses want to move back to New Orleans after Katrina? Or here's another one: Who would want to open a business in Florida after the eight...

Prying open a 'black box': Aetna decides to let consumers see what prices it negotiates with physicians, a move hailed by some as a leap in medical transparency. Others say the decision does nothing to enlighten consumers on the quality of care they are buying.(BENEFITS)
December 1, 2005... For years, people have been going to the doctor, paying a 810 to 830 copay and going on with their day without thinking about what it truly costs for that doctor's visit. With the advent of consumer-directed health plans, individuals are...

No place to hide: telematics technology allows trucking companies to keep an eye on their vans, rigs and drivers. While proponents praise the technology's ability to lower operating costs, they so far have yet to reap the benefits of lower premiums.(TECHNOLOGY)
December 1, 2005... A heavy city bus skids to a stop to avoid hitting a truck cutting in front of it. Passengers get thrown around, some are hurt. A while later, the owner of a fleet of Roto Rooter vans receives notice that it its being sued. The claimant, who had...

Rx, y, z for medical mgmt: Peter Rousmaniere has identified some current, albeit uncommon, insurer practices that could cut rising medical costs yet improve the quality of care for work injuries. And if that wasn't enough, he invited four executives working in three of the largest workers' compensation insurers to comment on them.(WORKERS' COMP)
December 1, 2005... Medical expenses continue to press upward with scant evidence that the health-care system is delivering better outcomes. The median time of injury disability increased between 1995 and 2003 from five to seven days, or 40 percent. The...

The changing face of terror: as al-Qaida fractures and new terrorist groups fill the vacuum, it looks like renewing a federal backstop to insure terrorism-related risks is going to take the form of a public-private partnership. The real question is, when?(REINSURANCE)
December 1, 2005... As renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act stalls in Congress, the al-Qaida terrorist network is morphing into a different organization than it was four years ago, according to one expert. The group responsible for the brazen attacks of...

Potholes of the big-rig gigs: trucking companies may not face the daily risks you'd think, but the ones they do confront are more than just potholes on their road to success.(INDUSTRY RISK REPORT: TRUCKING)
December 1, 2005... When people think of risk issues facing the trucking industry, common concerns that come to mind are cargo theft, terrorism threats, workers' compensation and environmental hazards. Yet, when we talked with risk professionals in the industry,...

Industry risk report: trucking.
December 1, 2005... INDUSTRY RISK REPORT TRUCKING Trucking firms confront many of the same risks that other industries face--labor shortages, workers' comp claims, regulation and competition. But when it comes to insuring and protecting their assets, many...

Guiding principles: a South Carolina property/casualty carrier picks Java-based technology to run its Web-based claims operation.(SPECIAL REPORT: CLAIMS)
December 1, 2005... No property and casualty core process is as complex, or as critical, as claims. When you consider that much of a carrier's cost dollar goes to pay the claims' piper, getting the process right could be considered imperative. Yet, until...

Wacky Claims of the self-insured: another year in the life of claims manager Davida McCloskey has come to a close. This year, she and her colleagues have had to deal with claims from companies with larcenous truck drivers, parking-lot scuffles over marital infidelities and attacks from the brown recluse spider.(SPECIAL REPORT: CLAIMS)(Interview)
December 1, 2005... Q: What kind of unusual claims have crossed your desk? A: We had some claims where the person working for the trucking company called the dispatcher and said he had lost his truck, that everything was gone and that he was in the middle of...

Managing the risk of identity theft: thieves are no longer just content with your car or your laptop. They want to steal you, and the identities and private information of your employees and customers.(RISK MANAGEMENT)
December 1, 2005... Identity theft is one of the fastest growing white-collar crimes in America. It is one of the few crimes where individual victims not only must prove that they have been harmed, but are also responsible for reclaiming their stolen identity. ...

Directory third-party administrators.(Directory)
December 1, 2005... DIRECTORY THIRD-PARTY ADMINISTRATORS 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;...