Reducing medical injury is essential to solving the current medical malpractice crisis, and physicians must play an active role in developing and implementing systems to improve patient safety, according to an article published in the Jan. 6 issue of Annals …
Rising healthcare costs are recognized as a key problem in the workers’ compensation industry. Medical costs once constituted 30 percent of the total workers’ comp claims expenses; today, however, they represent 50 to 60 percent of claims costs. State legislatures …
The number of independent insurance agencies with revenue greater than $250,000 dwindled to 20,066 in 2000, from 35,000 in 1990. By 2010, the number of agencies will decline to less than 12,000. While some portion of consolidation reflects agencies taking …
Leaders of the property/casualty insurance industry expect an improvement in profitability for 2004 compared with last year, according to a survey conducted by the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) at its eighth annual Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum in New York. …
Powerful Friends, Enemy Insiders and Embezzlement Charges We are destroyed as of today,” Michael Segal, owner of Chicago-based Near North National Group, told me several weeks ago in his 20th-floor office in the John Hancock Tower. The group’s subsidiary, Near …
With the start of the New Year and the beginning of a new session of Congress only a few weeks away, the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America (IIABA) is rolling out its legislative agenda for 2004. Top issues …
A number of banks on the East Coast, and more recently in the West, have been offering insurance products through brokerage subsidiaries for several years now. Some years back, when banks started buying insurance agencies, there were some concerns about …
The distinction between an agent and broker has had increased significance in California following Proposition 103 as brokers may charge broker fees and agents may not. Producers rely heavily on broker fee income due to declining commissions on certain property …
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) released its first “Roadmap to State Highway Safety Laws: A Report on States in the Passing Lane, in the Slow Lane and Stopped on the Shoulder” that found many dangerous gaps in a …
According to a recently released report from Munich Re, fatalities caused by natural catastrophes were up 450 percent in 2003, while insured losses reached $15 billion. More ominous was the reinsurer’s conclusion that economic and insured losses would continue to …
