Risk & Insurance articles from February 2005

Risk & Insurance archives from February 2005

Stinking funds.
February 1, 2005... The bad apples among self-insured workers' compensation funds are starting to stink. The latest stench to waft into the public domain comes from Associated Industries of Kentucky, a self-insured workers' comp trust fund. A.I.K. used run a...

Trade lobby leader makes top-100 list.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... William T. Hold, president of the National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research, has been named to the Insurance Newscast's annual list of the "100 Most Powerful People in the Insurance Industry" for the second year in a row. The list...

XL names new executives.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... Henry C.V. Keeling has been named Global Head of Business Services, XL Capital has announced. He will deal with the infrastructure aspects of XL's activities including information technology, real estate and the coordination of Global Shared...

Consortium launches data pool.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... SG CIB, Fortis Bank, Bank of Scotland, Calyon and West LB are joining forces with Standard & Poor's Risk Solutions to pool default and recovery data on leveraged loans in Europe. The initiative will provide better risk and profitability...

Broker pledges transparency.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter, a subsidiary of Marsh Inc., has informed its clients of a new "disclosure doctrine" that promises transparency in all transactions with clients in the reinsurance market. The policy ensures that Guy Carpenter...

RIMS meets with regulators.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... In response to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's investigation, officials from the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) recently met with New York regulators to respond to inquiries regarding contingency fees.

AIG founder aids relief.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... The Starr Foundation announced that it will donate $2.5 million to disaster recovery and humanitarian efforts in the wake of the December earthquake and tsunamis in South Asia. The Starr Foundation was established in 1955 by Cornelius Vander...

RiskMeter adds cities.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... CDS Business Mapping LLC, an online hazard mapping vendor, has added the states of Florida, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington to its Slope/ Aspect/Elevation reports, the company has announced. The reports offer insurers user slope and...

Califreacts to new law.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... The new California workers' comp law changes the factors determining how much money permanently injured workers receive as compensation for their injuries. As a result, it will mean some workers who are not severely disabled, and still...

GE counts successes.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... Since the inception of GE Insurance Solutions' Masonic Association insurance program in January 2004, the program has provided coverage for more than 4,200 Masonic Associations generating over $10 million in gross written premium, GE has...

A.M. Best rates gulf state of Qatar.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... A.M. Best Co. has assigned Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance Co. a financial strength rating of B++ and an issuer credit rating of "bbb," Qatar has announced. The ratings are based on A.M. Best's belief that further gains are likely in...

Vendor Gevity renews agreement.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... Gevity announced that it has renewed its agreement with member companies of American International Group Inc. to provide workers' compensation coverage for Gevity's employees in 2005. Enhancements from last year's program include a decrease in...

Rating agency S&P rates Athilon.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... Lightyear Capital announced that newly launched Athilon Capital Corp., a financial services company, received ratings of Aaa from Moody's and AAA from Standard & Poor's. Athilon was launched with approximately $250 million in capital, much of...

Carrier and broker expand product.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... The WellGuard program, an insurance program designed to protect well drillers, has recently been expanded to cover manufacturers and suppliers in the well-drilling industry. The Hartford and Willis Group have announced. The so-called...

P/C lobby gears up for Maine fight.(News & Notes)
February 1, 2005... The Property Casualty Insurance Association of America says it will keep a close eye this year on efforts by the Maine legislature to impose a .5 percent tax on insurance premiums as a way to pay for retiree health benefits for local police and...

PCI: mum's the word on Spitzer: "oh breathe not his name ... "wrote an Irish poet, and that spirit descended mightily on the first annual meeting of the newly-formed Property Insurers Association of America in November.(Upfront: news, updates and other emerging strategies from around the world)
February 1, 2005... The name in question, of course, was that of Eliot Spitzer, the crusading attorney general of New York in connection with his probe of price fixing in the insurance brokerage community. Spitzer was the uninvited guest. He was conspicuous...

Insurance chiefs divided over TRIA renewal: executives hope for action, but worry it might come at too high a cost.(Upfront: news, updates and other emerging strategies from around the world)
February 1, 2005... Chief executive officers at a handful of property-and-casualty insurers are divided over whether the federal insurance backstop used to compensate companies if they fall victim to a terrorist attack will be renewed. Failure to renew the...

Risk stats.(Upfront: news, updates and other emerging strategies from around the world)
February 1, 2005... Welcome to the actuarial world of "zero spin," a numerical zoo of trillions and billions and millions and thousands. The numbers below provide a snapshot of different segments of the insurance industry. $2.9 T* World property/casualty...

Finding the hissing link: disease management programs, when used in conjunction with disability management programs, can reduce the number of lost work days and lower health care costs.(Upfront: news, updates and other emerging strategies from around the world)
February 1, 2005... Double-digit increases in health care inflation and an aging workforce have forced employers to find new answers to keeping their employees healthy and productive. One solution, a number of employers believe, is to use disease management...

The new protocol: having access to multiple networks using one phone number. Now, that's integration.(Upfront: news, updates and other emerging strategies from around the world)
February 1, 2005... As commercial insurance buyers look forward to more favorable cycles, they can at least take stock in the fact that the market is delivering one product that will simplify their lives: the Internet-protocol phone. The phones allow users to...

Turning pariahs into princes.(Risk Management)
February 1, 2005... Risk managers walk a fine balance. If they get too aggressive about minimizing risk, they may be seen as a burden. If they get too laissez faire about addressing risks, their complacency can expose the company to disaster. Assuming for a...

Avoiding Armageddon.(The Law)
February 1, 2005... Yesterday was a typical day at the office. But today felt like Armageddon because you discovered your primary insurance carrier has been taken over by the state's insurance commissioner. It's in rehabilitation and will likely be liquidated. You...

In the name of the father.(Workers' Comp)
February 1, 2005... I hope you like snappy mnemonics as I am about to share one with you. A few years ago, I searched about for a simple means to summarize key tasks in injury prevention and recovery. I stubbed my mental toe upon the word "PADRE,"--meaning father...

Giving managers 'the creeps': in emerging markets, political risks are the source of creeping expropriation, as citizens who own local firms are often charged with regulating the companies as well.(Cover Story)
February 1, 2005... Multinational corporations may no longer have to worry about capricious Latin dictators ordering a sweeping takeover of the oil industry or the banking system in order to satisfy the anti-foreign fervor of its irate citizens. But instead of...

ERM seeps into the ivory tower: enterprise risk management, a topic which for several years has found itself high up on the corporate agenda, is spreading to the ivory towers of the academic world where the subject has traditionally found a cool reception.(Risk Management)
February 1, 2005... While enterprise risk management has become a hot topic in corporate risk management circles, academia has been cool to the idea. Universities and colleges that long have taught traditional insurance risk management have rarely touched on the...

Laugh out loud: this is no joke: a CD-ROM compilation of New Yorker cartoons in the last 80 years turns up almost 100 references to insurance.(Insurance)
February 1, 2005... At one point last December, I found myself in an ersatz California restaurant in Virginia, unable to smoke. Michael Bolton was on the public address system, and Christmas right around the corner. In response to this crisis, I was rushed to...

Bloodlines of business.(Special report: reinsurance)
February 1, 2005... The insurance business can be a family affair, especially within agencies. But a brother and a sister running different companies in the same line of insurance is more than a coincidence. Such is the case with Theresa Thompson Schugel, CEO of...

Sustaining a relationship: what you don't know about your carrier's relationships with reinsurers could hurt your program.(Special report: reinsurance)
February 1, 2005... Given the rate of property-and-casualty insurer insolvencies in recent years, it is no surprise that risk managers and brokers are concerned about the security of the carrier they entrust with their risk. The larger their risk, the larger their...

Vital signs strengthen for CDHPs: a Mass.-based pipe valve distributor reports saving as much as 8 percent by using a consumer-directed benefits plan compared with a traditional health benefits plan.(Benefits)
February 1, 2005... Skyrocketing health care costs convinced veteran human resource manager Diana Bonogofsky to implement a consumer-directed health plan last summer. Premiums rose more than 20 percent last year at her company, Micro Focus, a Sunnyvale,...

Wayne's multidisciplinary world: like many in the profession, Wayne Snow never started out thinking he would be managing risk for a living. Two decades after college, however, that's where he wound up. His is a tale of slow starts, second chances, and ultimate triumph.(Profile)
February 1, 2005... It's a moment that often occurs somewhere around the middle of our careers: a reappraisal of our progress to date; a thoughtful summing up of our accomplishments measured against our goals and dreams we had when first starting out. It comes to...

Protecting soft wares.(Industry risk report: enterprise software)
February 1, 2005... Software runs everything these days. Nowhere is that more true than in business. But the business of providing business software faces a few hurdles when it comes to risk management. Among those are the relatively young age of the industry and...