Monthly Archives: <span>May 2014</span>

Lower Cat Losses Helped Home Insurers to First Profit Since 2007: SNL

The U.S. homeowners insurance industry benefited from lower catastrophe activity in 2013 and became profitable for the first time since 2007, according to an analysis by SNL Financial. According to SNL, all of the top 20 homeowners insurers in its …

Actuaries Grapple with Insurance Questions on Self-Driving Cars

The car of the future is pictured in an imagined scene in a 1950s science magazine. The illustration depicts a family sitting in a big convertible, a tail-finned monster. Mom, Dad, and their kids are in a circle, playing a …

Protests Damaging Vietnam Industrial Zones Raise Investor Concerns

Dexter Hsu spent Tuesday night barricaded inside his workers’ dormitory in Vietnam’s Binh Duong province. Tables were stacked up against the doors, but he and his dorm-mates were terrified by the shouts and sounds of nearby rioting. Earlier that day, …

Report Cites Crops Most Vulnerable to El Nino

The El Nino weather phenomenon that is likely to strike this year will damage world maize, rice and wheat yields but boost soybeans, according to a study on Thursday that could help farmers plan what to grow. The Japanese-led report …

Carmakers, Regulators Looking Into Flaws in Air Bag Technology

When Ford Motor Co. recalled 600,000 sport-utility vehicles last week, it became the fourth carmaker this year to acknowledge an issue with malfunctioning air bags. So far in 2014, automakers in the U.S. have recalled about 6.6 million cars and …

Canada Imposes ‘Absolute Liability’ Rules on Pipeline Spills

Canada unveiled new rules on Wednesday to enhance pipeline safety and spill response, ahead of the development of new projects proposed to carry crude from Alberta’s oil sands to coastal ports for export. The new legislation will give Canada’s energy …

Africa Launches First Catastrophe Risk Insurance Pool

In the 1980s images of skeletal Ethiopian babies and their parents, dying from hunger during a devastating famine, helped galvanize global humanitarian and financial aid to drought-ravaged African countries. Three decades and countless droughts later and the relief model Africa …

House Republicans Offer Road Map for the Future of Terrorism Insurance

Having previously played (and arguably, lost) two prior rounds of legislative “chicken” with the insurance industry, congressional conservatives are making it known that, this time around, they’re quite serious about a radical reworking of the 12-year-old Terrorism Risk Insurance Program. …

R.I. Issues Bulletin on Implementing Auto Insurance Verification System

Rhode Island regulators recently issued a bulletin notifying the state’s auto insurers of their filing requirements and deadlines for the Rhode Island Insurance Verification System (RIIVS) to track uninsured motorists. The RIIVS and insurers’ filing requirements follow the R.I. Gen. …

Willis Names Martens Human Capital Leader in Midwest

Willis North America, a unit of Willis Group Holdings, named Gregory Martens as executive vice president and human capital practice leader of its Midwest region. Martens is based in Chicago and will oversee the human capital practice across Willis’s Midwest …