Latest USA Headlines

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

Private Firm WSI Cuts U.S. Hurricane Forecast to 19 Named Storms

Jul 21 2010 // Private weather forecaster WSI Corp cut its forecast for named storms in the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season on Tuesday, but still sees an active season with water temperatures and wind conditions conducive to violent...

Another Agency Probing Pittsburgh-Area Coke Blast

Jul 21 2010 // Another federal agency has joined the investigation of an explosion at a Pittsburgh-area coke plant that injured 20 workers last week.The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has sent a three-person team to U.S. Steel’s...

WrightUSA Launches Liability Plan for Government Employees

Jul 20 2010 // WrightUSA has launched a professional liability product tailored to United States government employees with international exposures. The product – branded as the World Wide Plan – will respond to any allegation...

Investors Face Uphill Battle with Liability Lawsuits Against BP

Jul 20 2010 // Shareholders angry about BP Plc’s battered stock price are heading to the courthouse in hopes of reclaiming some of their losses, but they face an uphill battle.Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April,...

Goldman Sachs Deep Pockets May Still Make It Lawsuit Target

Jul 20 2010 // Goldman Sachs put one headache behind it by settling with U.S. securities regulators, but it looks like a tempting deep pocket for banks and hedge funds that bought subprime-backed mortgage securities.A day after the U.S....

Canada Trade Minister Urges Action on Big Doha Issues

Jul 19 2010 // WTO member states must find answers to bilateral squabbles if they want to achieve any global breakthrough in free trade talks, Canada’s trade minister said Friday.In an interview with Reuters, Peter Van Loan said he...

Risk Managers Not Satisfied With U.S. Insurance Providers’ Service

Jul 19 2010 // Corporate risk managers report a serious and growing disconnect between themselves and their insurance brokers and carriers: At a time when U.S. companies are enhancing internal risk management capabilities and elevating...

As the Wholesale World Turns

Jul 19 2010 // As goes the circle of life, so goes the wholesale insurance broker world. Not even the sixth year of a soft market cycle has deterred industry veterans from launching new wholesale businesses or creating larger ones. Many...

Supreme Court Decision Limits Non-U.S. Companies’ Exposure to U.S. Securities Litigation

Jul 19 2010 // Securities lawsuits against BP and Toyota may be substantially narrowed, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision. On June 24, 2010, in a long-awaited decision that will affect the circumstances under which non-U.S....

Minor Earthquake Shakes Up U.S. Capital

Jul 19 2010 // Earthquakes are so rare in the Washington area that even a geology student wasn’t quite sure what was going on when a minor one hit early Friday. Was it a truck passing by? A low-flying plane?Gerasimos...

AIG to Pay $725M to Settle Securities Fraud Lawsuit

Jul 19 2010 // American International Group Inc. agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running securities fraud lawsuit led by three Ohio public pension funds, in one of the largest class action settlements in U.S. history.AIG,...

Business Moves

Jul 19 2010 // First Mercury, ValiantFirst Mercury Financial Corp., based in Southfield, Mich., reported that its principal insurance subsidiary, First Mercury Insurance Co., is acquiring Valiant Insurance Group Inc., a subsidiary of...

Ratings Roundup: Consumer Services, B&B

Jul 19 2010 // A.M. Best Co. has downgraded the financial strength rating to ‘B++’ (Good) from ‘A-‘ (Excellent) and the issuer credit rating to “bbb” from “a-” of New Zealand’s...

Explosion at Pennsylvania Coke Plant Under Investigation

Jul 16 2010 // Investigators were looking for clues Thursday into what caused an oven at a U.S. Steel plant near Pittsburgh to explode, injuring 20 workers and starting a fire that burned for hours.The powerful blast in the coke oven at...

Gale Force Winds Needed to Re-Inflate Insurance Share Prices

Jul 16 2010 // Nobody wishes for a natural disaster, but there’s nothing like a big U.S. hurricane to revitalize shares in property and casualty insurers, currently weighed down by persistently weak insurance prices.Nine analysts...

Reinsurance Tax Debate over HR 3424 Heats Up at Committee Hearing

Jul 15 2010 // Both sides presented their views at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, July 14. Compromise over whether or not to disallow deductions for premiums paid to purchase reinsurance from...

Toyota Says Drivers, Not Throttle, to Blame for Unintended Acceleration

Jul 14 2010 // Toyota Motor Corp. said on Wednesday its investigation of nearly 2,000 cases of unintended acceleration had found no problem with its electronic throttle system, and that driver error was to blame in some cases.The...

Marsh Names Insurance Editor Roberts as U.S. Media Director

Jul 14 2010 // Insurance broker Marsh has appointed Sally Roberts as director of U.S. Media Relations. Roberts joins Marsh from Business Insurance, a commercial insurance trade publication, where she most recently was a senior editor....

Citigroup Loses Bid to Have Suit Over ‘Toxic’ Mortgages Dismissed

Jul 13 2010 // A Manhattan federal judge Monday rejected Citigroup Inc.’s bid to dismiss a class-action lawsuit by bondholders who said the bank misled them about its exposure to “toxic” mortgages.U.S. District Judge...

U.S. P/C Industry Posts $11.5B Net Income in Q1

Jul 13 2010 // The U.S. property/casualty industry earned a net profit for the first quarter 2010, partly due to the continued recovery in the financial markets. The first quarter 2010 rebounded from a net loss in the first three months...