All the headlines from our Washington Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Jan 24 2010 // Characterizations by a recent Washington State Auditor’s report on the state’s workers’ compensation insurance system has the state Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) worried that people will...
Jan 24 2010 // Bills to ban the use of credit scoring, streamline the licensing of agents and brokers, and improve health care are all on Washington’s Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s (OIC) legislative agenda for 2010....
Jan 21 2010 // Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is seeking to prohibit the use of credit history, education and income for rating and underwriting personal insurance — the effect of which would likely result in...
Jan 7 2010 // The fight against fraud in the workers’ compensation system brought in $128 million to Washington last year, according to a new report from the state Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). In addition to...
Jan 6 2010 // After 30 years at Chubb Corp, Thomas Motamed joined Chicago-based commercial lines insurer CNA Financial in January 2009 as chairman and CEO. In this edited interview with Insurance Journal’s Andrew Simpson, Motamed...
Jan 5 2010 // Bills to improve health care, protect consumers, ban the use of credit scoring , streamline the licensing of agents and brokers, and broadening the definition of what’s considered “emergency care” are all...
Dec 31 2009 // Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries reminded employers that for the first time since voters passed an initiative 11 years ago indexing the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index, the state minimum...
Dec 30 2009 // Half a dozen stretches of levee on the Green River in Washington, below the threatened Howard Hanson Dam, are porous and unstable, according to a Seattle Times report.Those stretches, between Auburn and Tukmila, are...
Dec 29 2009 // Rate reviews by the Washington state insurance commissioner’s office have shaved more than $300 million from Washingtonians’ auto and homeowners insurance bills over the past decade.Last week the...
Dec 29 2009 // When Bob Hagan was a boy in Youngstown, Ohio, people equated the coke dust they swept off their doorsteps each day with opportunity, for it came from the steel mills that built this city.After graduating from high school...
Dec 28 2009 // A Spokane, Wash., man has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the state of Idaho for injuries he says resulted from a crash caused by potholes on Interstate 90 in northern Idaho.Kasey Crick, 22, filed the lawsuit Dec. 18...
Dec 22 2009 // Rate reviews by the Washington State Insurance Commissioner’s office reduced proposed automobile insurance rates by $26 million over the first 10 months of this year, a reduction of about 1 percent. In 2008, the rate...
Dec 21 2009 // A Battle Ground, Washington, auto glass installer who overbilled an insurance company for years has pleaded guilty to first-degree theft.Robert T. Wooster, 51, doing business as Dr. Bob’s Auto Glass and DRB...
Dec 8 2009 // Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has received the “Excellence in Consumer Advocacy Award” given out annually by consumer advisors to a nationwide association of insurance regulators.The...
Dec 8 2009 // Wells Fargo Insurance Services, Inc. has acquired iLeader Risk Management Solutions, a single office, insurance brokerage located in Tampa, Fla., and Orca Bay Benefits, LLC, a single office, employee benefits insurance...
Dec 6 2009 // Firefighting at Night“Nighttime air attack is a standard. … Such action was not taken because the USFS policy prohibits night flying. Would night flying have made a difference? No one can say for sure, but...
Dec 4 2009 // With a recent check showing that fewer than 1 in 4 of the buildings in the Green River flood plain have federal flood insurance, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is strongly urging more owners and renters to buy...
Dec 3 2009 // Washington State’s new domestic partnership law goes into effect today, and that means wherever a policy says ‘spouse’ the policy must cover registered domestic partners, Insurance Commissioner Mike...
Dec 2 2009 // Workers’ compensation rates in the state of Washington will climb by an average of 7.6 percent next year under changes adopted by state officials.State Labor and Industries Director Judy Schurke (SHUR’-key)...
Nov 19 2009 // The number of Washingtonians with no health insurance will soon reach 1 million, according to a report issued yesterday by the state’s Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler.Kreidler also predicts that the cost of...