Monthly Archives: <span>December 2010</span>

Miller, Shoemaker Join InVEST Board

InVEST, the insurance industry program that brings insurance education to classrooms, has appointed Peter Miller and Loren P. Shoemaker to its national board. Miller is president and CEO of The Institutes and Shoemaker is senior vice president and chief operating …

Test Your 2010 Insurance News IQ: 25 Questions

Are you an insurance news hound? Test your insurance news IQ and find out. The following questions and answers (at bottom of the page– don’t cheat!) were developed based on news stories published by InsuranceJournal.com in 2010. Good luck! 1. …

Guggenheim to Reinsure Standard Life of Indiana in Reorganization

Indiana Insurance Commissioner Stephen W. Robertson announced that Guggenheim Life and Annuity Co. will reinsure policies originally issued by Standard Life Insurance Company of Indiana, which has been in rehabilitation for two years. Standard Life is undergoing reorganization. As part …

Steak n Shake Increases Its Bid for Fremont Michigan InsuraCorp

Texas-based Biglari Holdings Inc., parent company of the Steak n Shake restaurants, has increased its proposal to acquire 100 percent of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock of Fremont Michigan InsuraCorp Inc. to $31 per share in cash. …

South Carolina Highway Deaths Doubled Over Christmas Holiday

South Carolina authorities say winter weather contributed to twice as many deaths on the state’s roadways over Christmas weekend this year. Multiple media outlets report that 13 people were killed on state roads and highways during the 78-hour Christmas weekend …

Clearwater Police Adopt License Plate Screening Cameras

A Tampa Bay-area police department is the latest to buy into new technology that uses cameras to scan license plates and checks the numbers against a database of stolen cars and other vehicles used in crimes. Clearwater police said the …

2010 Was Year of 20 Million Recalls for Car Makers

Automakers recalled about 20 million vehicles in 2010, led by high-profile recalls by Toyota that prompted new scrutiny of the auto industry’s safety record. The number of recalls this year was the largest in the United States since 2004, according …

North Carolina Jeweler Loses Bet Against a White Christmas

A North Carolina jewelry store owner made a $400,000 bet against a white Christmas — and lost. Alan Perry, owner of Perry’s Emporium in Wilmington, promised refunds for everything bought at his store between Nov. 26 and Dec. 11 if …

Six Keys to Harleysville’s Turnaround

Six years ago, Harleysville Group was in need of a big change. The Pennsylvania-based insurer had just come out of the worst performing year in its history. That’s when newly appointed CEO Michael Browne — who declared the company’s performance …

2011 Outlook: Too Much Capacity + Stagnant Demand = a Soft Market

A quick, and as yet incomplete, survey of re/insurance industry leaders indicates that the main concern they will have to deal with in the coming year isn’t climate change, or Solvency II, but the insurance industry’s ancient bugaboo, the soft …