Declarations
“By extending the grace period for renewing policies, we are giving our policyholders some breathing room and demonstrating that the National Flood Insurance Program stands with them at time of tremendous heartache and difficulty.”
— Said Jeff Jackson, interim senior executive of the NFIP, announcing a grace period for policyholders in states hit by Hurricane Helene who had flood coverage that lapsed before the storm hit. There normally is a 30-day grace period after NFIP policies expire when policyholders can renew and still be covered during the grace period. The agency is extending that until Nov. 26; Helene struck Florida’s Gulf Coast on Sept. 26.
“If someone who’s working full-time needs food stamps, doesn’t that mean that we as taxpayers are subsidizing the difference between what their employer should be paying them so that they could afford food and what they actually are paying them?”
— Said Joe Sanberg, a wealthy investor, anti-poverty advocate and proponent of California’s Proposition 32, which would raise the state’s current minimum wage of $16 to $17 for the remainder of 2024 for employers with at least 26 employees, increasing to $18 per hour starting in January 2025. The measure’s opponents say it would be hard for businesses to implement, particularly small employers with thin profit margins.
“You could imagine our surprise when the state of Texas settles for just that. … I can’t tell anyone what we wouldn’t have settled for as the county, but, you know, my lawyers are pretty damn good and they’re pretty aggressive, and I’m more than confident that $11,000 would not have been sufficient.”
— Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said about the $11,413 settlement the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reached with K-Solv, a chemical distribution and maritime services company, over an April 2021 chemical fire that sent more than 165,000 pounds of 43 different pollutants into the atmosphere. The county had estimated a maximum penalty of $1.175 million.
“Given that many primary insurers are already close to 2024 catastrophe budgets based on first-half catastrophe losses, we believe the potential losses from Hurricane Milton, combined with other weather-related losses so far, could fully exhaust their 2024 catastrophe budgets. This will affect underwriting margins and earnings but not capitalization.”
— S&P Global Ratings, in a report issued hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall, estimated the catastrophe budgets of 16 rated property/casualty insurers aggregates at about $40 billion, while year-to-date catastrophe losses have already reached $26 billion.
“Live Nation did not have a common-law duty to monitor plaintiffs’ campsite and discover the risk posed by the generator.”
— A Michigan appeals court said, ruling that concert promoter Live Nation isn’t responsible for the deaths of three young men who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator while camping at a Michigan music festival in 2021. Victims’ families alleged the small campsites at Faster Horses contributed to hazardous conditions. But the court, in a 2-1 opinion, said blame doesn’t rest with Live Nation, which managed the weekend country music event.
“We disagree with the jury’s verdict, as it conflicts with the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and the consensus of regulatory bodies and their scientific assessments worldwide.”
— Bayer said in a statement after a Pennsylvania jury determined the company must pay $78 million to a Pennsylvania man who said he got cancer from using the company’s Roundup weedkiller. The jury awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and $75 million in punitive damages to plaintiff William Melissen. Bayer had previously won 14 of 20 trials over Roundup.