Risk & Insurance articles from November 2007

Risk & Insurance archives from November 2007

Marsh's storm clouds.
November 1, 2007... With the abrupt departure of CEO Brian Storms, Marsh today is worse off than it was a few months ago. The markets have less confidence in its top management, whoever that may be today or tomorrow. There will be a period of uncertainty...

Rate increases dip.(NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Average healthcare rate increases were 5.3 percent this year, compared with 7.9 percent in 2006. Research conducted by human resources services company Hewitt Associates shows this nine-year low represents a market correction of conservative...

TJX settles.(NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... The TJX Cos. in September proposed a settlement for lawsuits filed after millions of its customers' credit cards were lost in a computer hacking incident. Still pending court approval at the time of publication, the settlement would include...

Willis as Isaac Newton.(NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Insurance broker Willis explores how soft rates and questionable profitability can coexist with such ample capacity in the marine insurance market in its latest market review, "Defying Gravity?" The report answers why insurers continue to flood...

Lloyd's delivers.(NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... A 34 percent leap in profits for the first six months of 2007 made Lloyd's of London [pounds sterling]1.81 billion ($3.65 billion) compared with [pounds sterling]1.35 billion in the same period last year. The boost was attributed to high...

Regulator appointed.(NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... After Gov. Matt Blunt signed captive insurance legislation earlier this year, Missouri named John Rehagen its captive insurance program manager. He previously was a financial examiner of the state's domestic insurance companies in the...

Rockhill picks up RTW.(NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Kansas City, Mo.-based specialty insurer Rockhill Holding Co. has announced its pending acquisition of Minneapolis-based RTW Inc., a provider of workers' comp insurance and services. While Rockhill writes specialty property/casualty business...

Injury intervention at work.(TEDDY WINNERS)
November 1, 2007... Who wouldn't want to get a return on investment of 580 percent? Not to mention the improved quality of life for workers and managers who spend less time battling pain and workers' compensation claims and more time focusing on their professions....

Stopping the violence spiral.(TEDDY WINNERS)
November 1, 2007... It's a dark day at any school when a violent incident takes place. It's especially difficult--and all too common--at inter-city school districts. That's the situation the Houston Independent School District must face; it suffers between 300 to...

Comp in Iraq.(TEDDY WINNERS)
November 1, 2007... As more banks and other infrastructures are created in Iraq, American civilian federal employees may have a pronounced role, potentially requiring adjustments to benefits in mission-critical posts overseas. To read the rest of this piece,...

Ringing endorsement for integration.(TEDDY WINNERS)
November 1, 2007... This year's for-profit Teddy winner, AT&T, is an integrated disability management practitioner. Coincidence? IDM disciples think not. They turn to the Integrated Benefits Institute for proof. To access these resources, please visit us on...

Stop dragging your feet.(IN-DEPTH SERIES)
November 1, 2007... In July, the GAO asked Health and Human Services to get its act together and execute screening and monitoring programs of WTC responders. This testimony before Congress details the GAO's growing impatience. To access this resource, please...

Networks, hierarchies sitting in tree.(IN-DEPTH SERIES)
November 1, 2007... This report from the IBM Center for The Business of Government argues a blend of hierarchy and network could help emergency response. It also examines past crises and their failures. To access this resource, please visit us on the Web at...

The top 5.(On the Web)
November 1, 2007... Read them yet? Or are you missing out on some of the most interesting Web content about risk and insurance? Our Top 5 Most Viewed Stories. To access these resources, please visit us on the Web at...

Aon study registers CDH uptick: driven, directed, whatever you call them--CDHs are taking off.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The use of consumer-driven health plans hasn't yet reached the critical mass that its advocates say is needed to produce universal reductions in healthcare costs. But the use of CDHs by employers and employees is...

Wikiphilia: risk-conscious pros get wired into Web 2.0.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
November 1, 2007... Wiki is one of the most well-known, and some would say most useful, tools in Web 2.0, the next generation of Internet interactivity that's here today. Some risk-minded professionals have caught on and launched their own wikis to communicate...

Section 404's divergent impacts: survey finds individual risk management departments divorced from requirements of section 404.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
November 1, 2007... Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has had a divergent effect on corporate risk management, a new survey has found. On the one hand, individual risk management departments aren't much involved in the reporting process. At the same time,...

Hospital performance mixed, survey finds: institutions score well on transparency, but still have a long way to go in implementing standards to help patients avoid hospital-acquired infections.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
November 1, 2007... First the bad news: Hospitals are flawed and make mistakes. Now, the good news: Hospitals are willing to admit it. Sometimes the flaws are glaring. In the area of preventing hospital-acquired infections, for example, 87 percent of the...

Europe raises the environmental stakes: countries take an inconsistent approach to a new EU directive.(UPFRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Progress on a new European Union environmental directive is slow, but corporations would be well advised to keep an eye on it, according to a new study. A September report by the London-based reinsurance broker...

Performing under pay pressure: with the compensation issue ever-simmering, brokers and risk managers discuss performance-based pay.(BROKERS: People, Ideas and Trends shaping the Brokerage Community)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Brokers appear willing and able to stake compensation on performance. Of course, their enthusiasm for the arrangement varies, and all seem to have conditions. The differences in opinion were made apparent...

Diverse and perfect: Kudos for Aon's treatment of GLBT community.(BROKERS: People, Ideas and Trends shaping the Brokerage Community)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chicago-based brokerage firm Aon Corp. earned top honors from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in September. The civil rights organization gave Aon a perfect 100 score on its Corporate Equality Index 2008. ...

Max Palmer managing director Marsh New York.(Obituary)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] G. Maxwell Palmer, a 2007 Risk & Insurance [R] Power Broker and managing director for Marsh, died over Labor Day weekend of prostate cancer. He was 49. Palmer, based in New York, was the National Healthcare...

U.S. Risk Insurance Group Inc.(BROKER MOVES)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] U.S. Risk Insurance Group Inc. named QUINTON GOSS a broker and inland marine underwriter of U.S. Risk Brokers, the company's wholesale excess and surplus lines insurance brokerage operations. Goss most recently...

Lockton.(BROKER MOVES)
November 1, 2007... Lockton named HENRY JENNINGS a senior vice president and global practice leader for its Private Equity and Corporate Acquisitions Practice. Jennings is a former private equity practice leader at Integro and national practice leader at Aon's...

Willis Group Holdings Ltd.(BROKER MOVES)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Willis Group Holdings Ltd. appointed LANNY JOHNSON and LISA FIELDING KING as senior vice presidents of the company's Pennsylvania operations. Johnson has more than 25 years of insurance industry experience,...

Integro.(BROKER MOVES)
November 1, 2007... Integro hired four former Marsh Canada employees upon opening its new office in Vancouver, British Columbia. MICHAEL BADDELEY, principal, was a senior vice president at Marsh. NORM DUNCAN, principal, was a managing director specializing in...

HUB to pick up Totten.(BROKER NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... A subsidiary of Chicago-based brokerage HUB International Ltd. expected to close the acquisition of Totten Insurance Group Inc. in the third quarter of 2007. Totten, a Canadian specialty insurance wholesaler, will operate as a separate entity...

Vitale switches camps.(BROKER NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Joseph Vitale, named a 2007 Reinsurance Power Broker in the facultative category by Risk & Insurance [R], has left Benfield for Guy Carpenter & Co., a part of Marsh & McLennan Cos. Vitale is senior vice president of GCFac, Guy Carpenter's...

HRH to acquire bank branch.(BROKER NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Hilb Regal & Hobbs Co. plans to finalize in the fourth quarter the purchase of an insurance intermediary owned by Bank of America. Cranford, N.J.-based Banc of America Corporate Insurance Agency specializes in employee benefits, as well as...

Lockton Brokers benevolence.(BROKER NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Executive Vice President of Lockton Insurance Brokers Mark Carlin has joined the board of directors at a San Fernando, Calif.-based nonprofit healthcare and social services organization. Carlin, a top producer for the brokerage in the...

Clapping continues for Lockton.(BROKER NEWS & NOTES)
November 1, 2007... Lockton placed No. 2,186 on Inc. megazine's list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the country. The list spotlighted a sliver of the 7 million-plus privately held U.S. companies and measured revenue growth from 2003 to 2006....

File a claim, get deported?(WORKERS' COMP)
November 1, 2007... A new U.S. Census report says that almost one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English. For a while, Edgar Velazquez was one of them. But that was before the native of Chiapas, Mexico, was...

Remember to restock, or else.(ROGER ON RISK)
November 1, 2007... Everything you need to know about business can be summed up in one word: efficiency. With it, success, fabulous babes and the Trump lifestyle are possible. Without it, you're standing on a street comer holding a sign, probably upside down, that...

Fall cleaning.(BROKERAGE)
November 1, 2007... It's deep into fall here in the Northeast. Time to thatch the lawn, renovate the garden, winterize the house and get ready for the deep freeze. It's time as well to shake out the old briefcase and rummage through the unused odds and ends I've...

Blissfully blinded by models.(RISK MANAGEMENT)
November 1, 2007... Put yourself for a moment in the place of a turkey. For the past 1,000 days, your owner has fed you and treated you well. If you were an analytical bird, you might trend your risk history and determine that it looks very favorable....

Automakers 1, plaintiffs 0.(THE LAW)
November 1, 2007... A recent San Francisco federal court decision, dismissing the state of California's global warming lawsuit against six automakers, means the industry could be off the hook, for now. California claimed automakers were responsible for 30 percent...

The cost controllers: absorbing the impact of two big mergers, the resilience of AT&T's Teddy Award-winning workers' compensation and disability management programs is a tribute to the teamwork that spawned them.(Cover story)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hey, who's your telecommunications provider? That's a simple enough question for some customers. But for the past two years, many have found it difficult to keep the players straight without an illustrated diagram....

Out of many, one: centralized management and a program that empowers employees is creating success.(Cover story)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Vicky Currier may not have shot the sheriff, but she did make sure that the deputy got arrested and that he paid restitution. The arrest of the former president of the Riverside County Sheriff's Association on...

Flushing out the frequent flyers: Houston Independent School District claims manager Tom Dolan knew it was time to act when one employee had 17 claims in five years. How he dispelled such "frequent flyers" is what gained the district a 2007 Teddy Award.(Cover story)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 2001, the Houston Independent School District had 150 employees with five or more previous claims under their belts and who were out of work collecting workers' compensation. One person had racked up 17 claims...

Giving costs the boot: a federal workers' compensation case management team has slashed future long-term liability at a U.S. Army installation from around $60 million to $27 million.(Cover story)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ann Harmon loves a good challenge. After 26 years of working in finance, she decided she wanted to help turn around a troubled workers' comp program. As an injury compensation program administrator at the U.S....

The rise and fall of second injury funds: unintended consequences have led to unforeseen costs, and legislatures are striving to limit the payout of second injury funds.(RISK & INSURANCE[R] SPECIAL REPORT: WORKERS' COMP)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The history of so-called second injury funds demonstrates, among other things, how unintended consequences can thwart even the best intentions of workers' compensation policymakers. The July 1, 2007, closure by...

Eight mistakes you ought to hate: when rates decline, remember to stay disciplined and resist falling prey to temptation.(RISK & INSURANCE[R] SPECIAL REPORT: WORKERS' COMP)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Declining workers' compensation rates are music to employers' ears throughout much of the country. After all, that seems like long-awaited good news, particularly since workers' compensation is more often than not...

Funds rife with conflicts of interest: from California to Rhode Island, state-sponsored workers' compensation insurers suffer from the brazen misdeeds of managerial appointees. Our columnist offers remedies that are basic, but routinely ignored.(RISK & INSURANCE[R] SPECIAL REPORT: WORKERS' COMP)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] State-sponsored workers' compensation insurers are supposed to protect small and midsize employers from being bruised in the marketplace of private insurers. But recent scandals suggest that some state funds have...

Thinking hard on mental illness: the American Psychiatric Association unveiled new psychiatric tools for return-to-work this past summer. Our resident workers' comp and behavioral health guru has let them sink in and is ready to provide his two cents.(RISK & INSURANCE[R] SPECIAL REPORT: WORKERS' COMP)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To an overflow conference audience spilling into an outer hallway in July, the American Psychiatric Association presented its new guide for managing return-to-work for employees with mental-health problems. The...

Fox trots up to the plate: KBR's David Fox lists passion, creativity and a commitment to communities as key elements in his tool box.(PROFILE)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] David Fox might cringe if you said it in front of him. In fact, he might even get a little testy if you said it at all. But give this man credit, for he's got soul. The Houston native and director of risk...

The utilization side of the story: utilization management is an increasingly important component of controlling pharmaceutical costs. No wonder workers' compensation PBMs are multiplying like rabbits.(WORKERS' COMPENSATION)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Let's say you and your pharmacy benefit manager are sophisticated and vigilant in your efforts to control spending on pharmaceuticals. Despite the wholesale pricing complications, you feel confident that your injured...

Data, privacy and the risk chain: how to secure information held by vendors ... and their vendors ... and their vendors ...(DISABILITY MANAGEMENT)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Remember the old shampoo commercial that claims consumers will tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on? The same can be said of private data when it comes to companies...

Out of the ashes: another failure? That government failed the rescue, recover and cleanup workers of Sept. 11 is doubtless. Whether all levels of government can learn from their mistakes before the next catastrophe is the real "if.".
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Workers cannot be expected to bear the brunt of a local politician's hesitancy to call a hazard for what it is. Nor should they endure the misery of a workers' compensation system that is designed to frustrate the...

A confederacy Of techies: the sale of Policy Management Systems Corp. nearly a decade ago has given birth to a new generation of insurance software companies in and around Columbia, S.C.(TECHNOLOGY)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Summary * Nestled among the charms of South Carolina are some of the most advanced technology companies serving the property/casualty business. As a result, Columbia is turning into the "Hartford of the South."...

Trickledown wrap-up tricks: midsized construction projects may benefit from an insurance approach long used at the largest sites. A careful analysis will show if this approach makes sense for specific projects.(RISK & INSURANCE[R] INDUSTRY RISK REPORT: CONSTRUCTION)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rising costs are prompting general contractors, developers and owners with midsized projects to explore an insurance program that has controlled the cost of risk on much larger projects. Consolidated insurance...

Workers' compensation & directory.(Directory)
November 1, 2007... Below are paid listings of vendors and their booth numbers at the 16th Annual National Workers' Comp and Disability Conference. This guide is not intended to be a complete directory. Suppliers themselves have provided this data. To obtain more...

Stay put: keep your domicile domestic: U.S. federal and state legislation since 1986 have done a lot more to make domestic captives attractive for insurers.(POINT)
November 1, 2007... Prior to 1986, offshore domiciles were the clear choice for those considering the establishment of captive insurance programs. The attractiveness of offshore domiciles largely related to tax advantages. With adequate ownership distribution, an...

Get my drift: take your captive offshore: offshore domiciles have stood the test of time. They will be there for corporations long into the future, just as they have over the past 50 years.(COUNTERPOINT)
November 1, 2007... On an aggregate basis, the United States (with its 50 individual states--many trying to now attract captive insurers) is the largest captive domicile country in the word. However, because each state has its own captive legislation, each should...