Capitol to Courthouse Headliners: Wednesday, July 23
Jul 23, 2008
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Florida Zero-Collateral Rule Moves Ahead
Foreign reinsurers with triple-A ratings from two rating firms would not have to post collateral under a new Florida Office of Insurance Regulation published Friday.
U.S. Senate Panel To Commence Insurance Regulation Hearings
The Senate Banking Committee will hold a long-awaited hearing on insurance regulatory issues next Tuesday, and so far full details of the proceedings remain under wraps.
Before 2004, few would have paid much attention to tropical waves peeling off Africa’s west coast.
Thirty hurricanes later, such disturbances elicit a bit more worry.
Families yield in shutter squabble
Art and Doris Haendel will interrupt their North Carolina vacation next week to drive home and open the accordion shutters on their Kings Isle house. It’s that, or face daily $50 fines for subjecting their neighbors to what some consider visual blight: closed metal shutters painted white to match the house. It’s enough to turn a retiree into a civil-rights activist. ‘We now know this matter needs to be argued through the state of Florida’s political system,’ Doris Haendel said, ‘We have already begun to pursue’ a letter-writing campaign to state legislators.
Auditors: FL overbilled Medicare $374 million in 3 years
Florida hospitals and doctors overbilled Medicare by more than a third of a billion dollars since 2005, according to results from a pilot program to become permanent this fall.
Demand Is Intensifying For Mortgage Chief To Resign
A second group called for Florida’s top mortgage regulator to step down Tuesday, a day after the state’s chief financial officer asked for his resignation.
Nearly 300 Big Bend children rejected for subsidized health insurance
Nearly 300 poor children in the Tallahassee area were recently rejected for subsidized health insurance at a time when the state is struggling with a transition to a $300 million computer system that manages 2.3 million Medicaid patients.
Swap one tax for another? 2 sides making their cases
The debate over swapping property taxes for sales taxes — the core of Amendment 5 — began to ferment on Tuesday.
Two newcomers challenge incumbent for House District 100 seat
It is essentially a battle of newcomers.
Two candidates who have never before sought public office are challenging first-term state Rep. Evan Jenne for the House District 100 seat. Jenne, who is seeking re-election, won the seat unopposed in 2006.
Brown-Waite Focuses on November Election
U.S. Rep. Virginia “Ginny” Brown-Waite has lived and worked in politics most of her adult life.
Wexler’s Delray residency disputed by opponent
It’s unlikely U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler curls up on his mother-in-law’s sofa, pundits on the Fox News program The O’Reilly Factor said Tuesday night.
Jim King is Out of Race, but Still on Ballot
One of the more unusual campaigns this year has been that of Republican Jim King, 53, who attacked incumbent U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite for her sometimes-moderate stands and had hoped to win the Republican nomination for her 5th Congressional District seat. But he was forced to drop out over questions about his veracity.
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Florida’s tomato growers seek payback
Battling to overcome hardship caused by a salmonella outbreak initially blamed on raw tomatoes, the Florida tomato industry plans to lobby Congress for monetary compensation and more timely and transparent investigations conducted for food-borne illnesses.
Spanish firm may build thermoelectric plant
The manufacturer of Spain’s largest solar power plant has signed a ”nonbinding” agreement with Seminole Electric in Tampa to build a thermoelectric plant and sell the electricity to the Florida municipal utility company.
Court ruling allows Putnam County coal plant
A court paved the way last week for Seminole Electric to move forward with long-delayed plans to build a large coal plant.
U.S. Sugar employees sue for better deal
After Butch Wilson sold his 700 shares in United States Sugar Corp. at the time of his October layoff, the computer specialist counted himself lucky to have exited before the stock sank 20 percent lower.
‘Gray water’ plan sinks in Congress
Congress bailed out nearly 1 million Florida boaters, including about 40,000 in Brevard, on Tuesday who could have faced stiff fines under new rules this fall limiting the dirty waters that can spill overboard.
Mixed results in study of Fla. graduation rate
A new study Tuesday commends – and criticizes – a method Florida has been using to claim it has a better high school graduation rate than shown by national statistics, which rank the state near the bottom.
New York Agents Support Expansion of Excess & Surplus Export List
New York have called upon state officials to ease the rules for how agents obtain coverage for some high-risk policies.
The Excess Line Association of New York has proposed adding dozens of new policy-types – including coastal homeowners insurance on Long Island, vacant building coverage and some types of professional liability policies – to the so-called export list, a catalog of coverages that excess lines brokers can place for agents without them first having three standard market carriers decline to insure a risk.
FEMA seeks immunity from suits over trailer fumes
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is requesting immunity from lawsuits filed on behalf of Gulf Coast hurricane victims who claim they were exposed to dangerous fumes while living in government-issued trailers.
Report: U.S. Cedes More Than $58B Offshore in 2007
The United States ceded $58.4 billion in premium to offshore reinsurers in 2007 — compared to $54.7 billion in 2006 — an increase of 6.8 percent. Net recoverables totaled $113.0 billion, a decrease of 1.1 percent from $114.2 billion in 2006, and the total premium ceded to unaffiliated offshore reinsurers came in at $24.6 billion, a 10.7 percent increase compared to $22.2 billion in 2006, according to a recent analysis by the Reinsurance Association of America.
Catastrophe losses are getting more and more expensive. Population growth and increasing wealth compound exposures while a changing climate causes more frequent and severe events. Ronald Gift Mullins asks, “Who should pick up the tab?â€
Who is to pay for natural catastrophes? Insurers and reinsurers with earnings from their investments and premiums from policyholders? State pools funded by citizens’ taxes? A federal fund financed by US taxpayers? Investment-type instruments backed by the trillions in the world’s capital markets? Charitable and religious groups? A creative combination of one or more of these programmes?
The industry’s confidence in catastrophe models was tested in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina defied loss expectations. In our latest survey, Global Reinsurance asked readers how they feel about the models now. Helen Yates presents the results.
Three years ago the world watched in shock and awe when Hurricane Katrina did her best to write-off an entire US city. The loss estimates rose and insurance companies began the long and arduous task of dealing with thousands of claims. Many insurers and reinsurers quickly realised their exposures in Louisiana were much greater than they had anticipated. Fingers were pointed at the catastrophe modelling agencies for failing to predict the magnitude of the loss.
Bob Ward of RMS:Â When storms turn political
With the prospect of high hurricane activity and pressure to keep rates low, reinsurers face a growing need to mitigate their risks, as Bob Ward explains.
With the 2008 hurricane season now officially underway, it is tempting for the re/insurance industry to look back at the last two years and assume that the risk of landfalls along the western coastlines of the North Atlantic has declined.
Reinsurers face a future of ever-increasing catastrophe losses. The World Bank’s Eugene Gurenko discusses the industry’s role in an age of climate change.
The causes of rising global temperature and the increased frequency of extreme weather patterns remain the subject of ongoing scientific debate. Meanwhile, the insurance industry – particularly global reinsurers – face the undeniable consequences of climate change. Estimated insured losses caused by natural disasters have been on the rise worldwide. Economic losses over the last decade have increased by a factor of seven over the level of the 1960s, and insured losses caused by natural disasters went up by a factor of twenty-five. First 2004 and then 2005 have been the years with the highest-ever insured losses due to weather-related natural catastrophes. Insurance claims from natural disasters (and related economic losses) are likely to continue on their relentless upward trend.
COMMENTARY:Â What AIG’s Fall and New CEO Mean for the Insurance Industry
The world’s largest insurance company, the one that always announces spectacular earnings, the company with the forceful views on how the market should function, has fallen off its pedestal. It not only has fallen, but also has tumbled down a very steep slope. Two
Universal Insurance Holdings, Inc. (UVE), a vertically integrated insurance holding company, announced that its subsidiary Universal Property and Casualty Insurance Company (UPCIC), has received approval from the South Carolina Department of Insurance to write property and casualty insurance in the state of South Carolina.
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