Latest Illinois Headlines

All the headlines from our Illinois Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Northern Illinois Agency Owner Indicted Again; Slapped with 20 Fraud Counts

Aug 22 2017 // The owner of multiple property/casualty insurance operations in northern Illinois has been indicted once again, this time on charges that he defrauded more than 100 clients.Todd J. Fendler, of Rockford, Ill., previously...

Illinois Attorney General Reaches $4.5M Settlement in Opioid Marketing Case

Aug 22 2017 // Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has reached a $4.5 million settlement with an Arizona-based pharmaceutical company that her office sued for deceptive marketing of an opioid drug meant for cancer patients.Madigan...

Industrial Insurer HDI Global Forms Excess Surplus Lines Carrier

Aug 18 2017 // Industrial insurer HDI Global Insurance Co. (HDI) has formed an excess and surplus lines subsidiary, HDI Specialty Insurance Co.The new platform will “bring European expertise and solutions” to the alternative...

Illinois’ Alera Group Taps Assurex Global’s Clark to Lead Employee Benefits Practice

Aug 15 2017 // Alera Group, a Deerfield, Illinois-based national employee benefits, property/casualty, risk management and wealth management firm, appointed John Clark as its national employee benefits practice leader.Clark will leverage...

Illinois’ Mutual Reinsurance Bureau Looking for New CEO

Aug 11 2017 // The Mutual Reinsurance Bureau (MRB), based in Cherry Valley, Ill., has begun the formal process of identifying a successor to the company’s current chief executive officer Timothy Dorr. Dorr plans to retire from the...

Classic Cars Worth Millions Destroyed by Fire in Illinois

Aug 11 2017 // Dozens of antique vehicles were destroyed when a fire swept through a garage outside the southern Illinois community of Staunton.Staunton Fire Protection District Chief Rick Haase says about a third of the building that...

Crop Damage from Herbicide Dicamba a Growing Problem Across U.S. Farm Belt

Aug 2 2017 // Larry Martin in Illinois says he’s never seen anything like it in his 35 years of farming. Arkansas soybean grower Joe McLemore says he faces the loss of his life savings.They’re among farmers across the U.S....

Illinois Insurance Agent Sentenced to 5 Years for Fraud Scheme

Jul 26 2017 // A Decatur, Ill., independent insurance agent has been sentenced to 63 months in federal prison for defrauding his clients, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Illinois reported.Chief U.S. District...

Flooding Continues in Northern Illinois as Storms Move Through

Jul 25 2017 // Severe thunderstorms that brought heavy rain, hail and strong winds to northern Illinois have exacerbated recent flooding in some areas.The storms moved through Sunday, causing the already-swollen Fox River to rise again...

How Surplus Lines Insurers Can Beat Illinois Bad Faith Claims

Jul 24 2017 // Surplus lines insurers, your Illinois policies are exempt from all statutory bad faith claims. Or at least they’re arguably exempt. But whether arguable or actual, you should be moving to dismiss these claims at the...

Study: Reforms Targeting Physician-Dispensed Drugs Have Mixed Results

Jul 24 2017 // A new study has found that state reforms to control the costs of prescription drugs by targeting reimbursements for physicians dispensing them are having some effect but that physician-dispensing still accounts for a large...

States See Mixed Results from Reforms Targeting Physician-Dispensed Drugs: WCRI

Jul 12 2017 // A new study has found that state reforms to control the costs of prescription drugs by targeting reimbursements for physicians dispensing them are having some effect but that physician-dispensing still accounts for a large...

Arsons in Peoria, Illinois, Keep Firefighters Busy

Jul 11 2017 // Dealing with a fire can be a serious problem on its own and becomes even more intense when people set buildings ablaze deliberately.That’s the issue in South Peoria, Ill., in late 2016 and earlier this year when a...

Illinois County Sues Opioid Makers

Jul 10 2017 // A southwest Illinois county is suing pharmaceutical companies, alleging the prescription painkiller epidemic is worse due to deceptive marketing.The Jersey County lawsuit was filed against the makers of opioids, including...

Train Derails, Spills 20K Gallons of Exxon’s Oil in Illinois

Jul 5 2017 // About 20,000 gallons of crude oil belonging to Exxon Mobil Corp. was released after a Canadian National Railway Co. freight train derailed on June 30 at Plainfield, Illinois.The cause of the derailment was unknown, a...

How States Rate in Preventing Home, Auto, Work Accidents

Jun 28 2017 // No state goes far enough to protect its residents from leading causes of preventable deaths and injuries – commonly known as “accidents” – on the road, in homes and communities and at work, according to the...

Illinois Jury: AbbVie Must Pay $15M in Depakote Birth-Defect Case

Jun 12 2017 // A federal jury in East St. Louis, Ill., has awarded $15 million to a 10-year-old boy whose mother blamed his birth defect on AbbVie Inc.’s bipolar disorder drug Depakote that she took while pregnant, in the latest...

Illinois Court Upholds $1.5M Judgment for Six Flags Waterslide Injury

Jun 5 2017 // An Illinois appeals court has upheld a $1.5 million judgment against Six Flags Great America for a hand injury a woman suffered on a waterslide.In her lawsuit in Lake County Circuit Court, Shatoya Meeks claimed that while...

Illinois’ Palestine Insurance Agency Adds Erton

Jun 1 2017 // Palestine Insurance Agency in Palestine, Ill., recently hired Mindy Erton as a customer service representative (CSR). In this position, Erton will handle the collection, processing, and distribution of all agency...

Arthur J. Gallagher Acquires Williams-Manny Insurance in Illinois

May 30 2017 // Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired Williams-Manny Insurance Group, headquartered in Rockford, Illinois. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.Founded in Rockford in 1896, Williams-Manny Insurance Group is a...