Latest Legislation Headlines

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

Top Workers’ Compensation News in 2010

Jan 4 2011 // Soft market conditions with unabated price competition and a slow economy with reduced payrolls continued to affect commercial liens including the the workers’ compensation industry in 2010, as they did in...

Florida Approves Lower Collateral for Renaissance Re

Jan 4 2011 // Bermuda-based Renaissance Reinsurance Ltd. has been approved to participate in Florida’s property reinsurance marketplace with modified collateral requirements.In 2007, Florida lawmakers passed legislation that...

Federal Audit Rips Spending for Texas Hurricane Cleanup

Dec 31 2010 // A scathing audit by the federal Department of Homeland Security questions whether some $45 million in public money was properly spent to remove debris in the cleanup of Chambers County, one of the Southeast Texas counties...

Steak n Shake Increases Its Bid for Fremont Michigan InsuraCorp

Dec 31 2010 // Texas-based Biglari Holdings Inc., parent company of the Steak n Shake restaurants, has increased its proposal to acquire 100 percent of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock of Fremont Michigan InsuraCorp Inc....

Inspectors Find 2 Tennessee Dams in Need of Repair

Dec 31 2010 // State inspectors have found two privately owned hazardous dams in Tennessee that are in need of immediate repair, including one that the property owner seems unwilling to fix.An investigation by The Jackson Sun in May...

Indiana Gov., Lawmakers Eyeing Bank Insurance Fund as Revenue Source

Dec 31 2010 // Gov. Mitch Daniels and Indiana lawmakers preparing to craft the state’s next two-year budget are eyeing an obscure bank insurance fund as a possible revenue source to close anticipated budget gaps.The Indianapolis...

How to Fix Nation’s Flood Insurance Program

Dec 31 2010 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is seeking a top-to-bottom review of the efforts to reform the nation’s flood insurance program. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) has...

2011 Outlook: Too Much Capacity + Stagnant Demand = a Soft Market

Dec 31 2010 // A quick, and as yet incomplete, survey of re/insurance industry leaders indicates that the main concern they will have to deal with in the coming year isn’t climate change, or Solvency II, but the insurance...

California Approves Homeowners Underinsurance Regulations

Dec 31 2010 // California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has approved regulations designed to combat underinsurance and may require insurance agents and brokers to complete additional training. The regulations will take...

2010 Was Year of 20 Million Recalls for Car Makers

Dec 31 2010 // Automakers recalled about 20 million vehicles in 2010, led by high-profile recalls by Toyota that prompted new scrutiny of the auto industry’s safety record.The number of recalls this year was the largest in the...

Calif. Regulator Urges Gov.-Elect Brown to Preserve Workers’ Comp Reforms

Dec 31 2010 // Calif. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced he has sent a letter to Gov.-Elect Jerry Brown to urge him to preserve the workers’ compensation insurance reforms that have reduced the Workers’...

Top 5 Things Affecting Excess & Surplus Market in 2011

Dec 30 2010 // It has been a challenging few years for those in the excess and surplus (E&S) lines insurance market. An endless soft market, extreme competition from the standard markets, and a bad economy left wholesale and retail...

How to Fix Nation’s Flood Insurance Program

Dec 30 2010 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is seeking a top-to-bottom review of the efforts to reform the nation’s flood insurance program. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) has...

Federal Judge Tosses Pennsylvania Bar Patron’s Shooting Lawsuit

Dec 30 2010 // A federal judge in Pittsburgh has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a bar patron who claims he and another customer should have been searched for weapons before they shot one another in February. Forty-two-year-old Thomas...

Ohio Supreme Court Ruling Favors Bus Wreck Survivors

Dec 29 2010 // The Ohio Supreme Court says a university’s insurance coverage extended to a charter bus that crashed, killing five student baseball players and two others.The 5-2 ruling issued Dec. 28 is a victory for families and...

Southeast’s Top Stories: Disasters That Happened and 1 That Didn’t

Dec 23 2010 // The top insurance stories in the Southeast in 2010 included several disasters that caused considerable death and destruction in the region and one that didn’t do as much harm as feared.The April 20 blowout of...

Catastrophes Top 2010 List of Major Global Insurance Events

Dec 23 2010 // Natural and man-made catastrophes topped the list of the most significant events in 2010, with three major earthquakes, a near record number of hurricanes, some serious typhoons and windstorms, a volcanic eruption and a...

AIG to Pay States $146 Million In Workers Compensation Settlement

Dec 23 2010 // American International Group Inc. (AIG) has agreed to pay $146.5 million in fines and additional taxes to state insurance regulators for alleged under-reporting of premiums to states more than a decade ago.The company will...

New York Suit Against Ernst & Young Fills Regulatory Gap

Dec 23 2010 // In choosing Ernst & Young as his target in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filled what looks destined to be a permanent gap in regulators’ responses to the...

Democratic Congress Productive But Unpopular

Dec 23 2010 // Perhaps never before has a U.S. Congress done more and been liked less than the one controlled by President Barack Obama’s Democrats that ended Wednesday.It wrapped up its two-year legislative cycle with a crush of...