Declarations

Personal E&S

“I wish we could serve this customer base on an admitted basis to give them what they need and what they want to buy.”

— Remarked Chubb CEO Evan G. Greenberg, referring to the insurer’s increase in North American personal excess and surplus lines business. During a fourth-quarter earnings conference call, Greenberg said while the large majority of Chubb’s personal insurance portfolio is on admitted paper, its E&S business is growing “at a rapid clip.”

“This is the most vulnerable we have ever been. … It doesn’t even take a storm anymore to threaten us. On most regular high tides, the water comes up and through where this dune used to be.”

— Patrick Rosenello, mayor of North Wildwood, New Jersey, about the impact of rising water on the popular coastal town. A recent storm destroyed part of the sand dunes the town bolstered to protect itself. North Wildwood is in a legal battle with the state over tens of millions of dollars the town has spent trying — mostly in vain — to hold back the ocean.

“[I]t is possible that some assumptions the Governor’s Office made about the background checks — such as assuming that BCA was reviewing Department of Revenue information — were incorrect.”

— An audit, produced by the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor, says the governor’s office “departed from its Standard Operating Procedure for Executive Director Appointments” when selecting Erin Dupree as director of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management. The audit alleges the governor’s office did not have complete information about Dupree, who resigned her post after media reports about her financial problems and other issues.

“The massive volumes of polluted fresh water diverted through the Bonnet Carre Spillway and into the Mississippi Sound caused direct and indirect mortality of resident bottlenose dolphins. … Many of the dolphins that did survive developed extremely painful and debilitating skin lesions.”

— States a federal lawsuit alleging that the 2019 opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway as a flood-control measure sent polluted fresh water from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, killing bottlenose dolphins that live in saltwater. The Mississippi Sound Coalition, which includes local governments and business groups, filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking protection for the dolphins under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

“It has destroyed our market. No one wants to insure trucking here. … And 87% of trucking companies in Georgia are small businesses, with fewer than five employees.”

— Said Bryce Rawson, assistant to Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King, about the problems trucking companies in the state have in securing liability insurance. Several Georgia Republican legislative leaders and Commissioner King are seeking the repeal of Georgia’s direct-action law, under which injured motorists have been able to sue truckers’ insurance companies directly, leading to large verdicts and settlements.

“It’s a trauma. We’re all going through grief as a result of it. … Petaluma is known as the Egg Basket of the World. It’s devastating to see that egg basket go up in flames.”

— Said California poultry farmer, Mike Weber, whose chickens recently tested positive for avian flu. His company, Sunrise Farms, has had to slaughter its entire flock of egg-laying hens — 550,000 birds — to prevent the disease from infecting other farms in Sonoma County north of San Francisco. The highly contagious virus has ravaged Sonoma County, where officials have declared a state of emergency.