It Figures

14%

The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association assessment to insurance companies will go up by 14 percent on July 1, from $124.89 to $143.09 per insured vehicle. The new rate is effective July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011. The fund provides lifetime medical benefits to people who suffer catastrophic injuries in car accidents. Under the state’s no-fault insurance law, the MCCA must charge insurers a premium sufficient to cover expected losses and expenses that the MCCA thinks will likely incur during the coming fiscal year. MCCA said the assessment increased primarily because of longer periods of treatment for injured persons and lower long-term investment assumptions.

30

Insurance companies in Iowa now must give insureds a minimum 30-day notice of renewal or cancellation of their homeowners insurance policies. An omnibus insurance bill, Senate File 2201, signed by Gov. Chet Culver, makes renewal and cancellation notice requirements for home insurance policies the same as those for auto insurance policies. The measure also creates new rate increase notice requirements for health insurers. AP

3%

North Dakota’s workers’ compensation agency is proposing a 3.3 percent average rate increase, starting in July. The new rates will be applied to each worker’s first $24,700 of income. That threshold is $1,000 higher than it is now, so even if rates stay the same, a company’s insurance bill will go up. The agency attributes the increase to higher medical costs and North Dakota’s rising wages

$29.1 Million

A family in Lake County, Ill., has won a $29.1 million verdict in a medical malpractice lawsuit against the federal government. It benefits Christian Arroyo of Gurnee, a 6-year-old boy who suffered brain damage at birth and now is a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. He was delivered in May 2003 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The family’s attorney said the lawsuit was brought in federal court against the U.S. government because the doctors in the case worked for a federally funded clinic. AP