It Figures
4%
The increase in medical malpractice premiums collected by insurers in 2005 over 2004 in Tennessee. Insurers collected $341 million. Insurers paid out about 14 percent more in Tennessee cases in 2005 than the year before, including $119 million in settlements and another $6 million for five court judgments, according to the state Department of Commerce and Insurance.
2.5%
The new surcharge Florida homeowners will pay on their insurance premium when they renew policies in a plan approved by state regulators to help bail out Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The new charge is on top of an earlier 7 percent assessment.
3
The death toll from thunderstorms that tore up homes and buildings across North Carolina last month. Several states were battered by the tornadoes and straight-line winds that overturned mobile homes and tractor-trailers, uprooted trees and knocked down power lines.
$15,000
The amount that a bankruptcy judge slashed the monthly salary of Vesta Insurance Group chief executive David Lacefield, after creditors claimed he was making too much as the company is liquidated. Lacefield’s salary for November will be cut from $37,000. This summer, the insurance subsidiaries selling home coverage in Florida, Hawaii and Texas went insolvent and were seized by regulators. More than 300 employees lost jobs. The liquidation is costing about $340,000 a month.
$16.6 million
The amount in damages levied against USI Holdings Corp. in June in a copyright infringement case. A federal court has now ordered a new trial on damages and statute of limitations issues in the case, William A. Graham Company v. Thomas P. Haughey and USI MidAtlantic Inc. (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, CA No. 05-612).
55.8%
The rate increase being considered by Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. for wind-only policies next year. The proposed increase would be on top of the 25.9 percent increase that Citizens is already set to collect starting Jan. 1. If the insurer’s board agrees to file for the higher rates, the rate request would go before regulators at the Office of Insurance Regulation.