Latest Arkansas Headlines
All the headlines from our Arkansas Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Special Purpose Captive Insurer OK’d in Arkansas
Feb 8 2016 // Diamond Risk Insurance LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baptist Health, has been approved as a captive insurer by the Arkansas Insurance Department. Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr said Baptist Health is the...
Arkansas Utility Wants U.S. to Uphold Exxon Mobil Spill-Related Fines
Feb 4 2016 // A water utility company in Arkansas is urging a federal regulatory agency to uphold fines and new safety requirements for Exxon Mobil Corp. regarding an oil spill in Mayflower. In a letter to the Pipeline and Hazardous...
Special Purpose Captive Insurer Approved in Arkansas
Jan 27 2016 // Diamond Risk Insurance LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baptist Health, has been approved as a captive insurer by the Arkansas Insurance Department. Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr said Baptist Health is the...
Funding Plan for Arkansas Fire Departments Proposed by Lawmakers
Jan 26 2016 // Two Arkansas legislators hope the state finds a way next year to distribute excess state funds to volunteer fire departments that suffer funding shortages, impacting the purchase and repair of equipment. The Quail Creek...
Flood Threat Subsiding Near New Orleans, Baton Rouge
Jan 14 2016 // The threat of flooding is subsiding across the lower Mississippi River region just two weeks after high waters devastated parts of the St. Louis area. The Mississippi probably won’t rise as high from Arkansas to New...
Fired Arkansas Cop Sues City for $2.5M
Jan 12 2016 // A former Forrest City Police Department officer who was fired in 2014 over a photo posted on social media is suing the Arkansas city for more than $2.5 million. The Herald-Times reports the photo shows then-officer...
Officials: Arkansas Wildfires Burned 14,652 Acres in 2015
Jan 11 2016 // Arkansas forestry officials say wildfires engulfed fewer acres in 2015 when compared to the previous year. Data released by the Arkansas Forestry Commission on Friday said 14,652 acres burned last year, compared to 16,687...
‘Couldn’t Stand the Weather’ Sums Up South Central News in 2015
Dec 30 2015 // If you scan the song/album list of the late, great Texas blues guitar powerhouse, Stevie Ray Vaughan, you’ll get an inkling of what the major stories from Insurance Journal’s South Central region in 2015 were...
Arkansas Court: Labor Can’t Be Depreciated in ACV Claim
Dec 21 2015 // An insurer can’t depreciate labor in calculating the actual cash value (ACV) of an insured property in the event of a covered loss, Arkansas high court justices say. In an opinion delivered Dec. 10, the Arkansas...
Prosecutor to Wait on Charges in Fatal Arkansas Bus Crash
Dec 16 2015 // A state police report into a November bus crash that killed six migrant farm workers from Mexico says the driver was “inattentive” in an unsafe manner, but decisions on possible traffic citations or criminal...
No Depreciation of Labor in ACV Claim, Arkansas High Court Says
Dec 14 2015 // An insurer can’t depreciate labor in calculating the actual cash value (ACV) of an insured property in the event of a covered loss, Arkansas high court justices have determined. In an opinion delivered on Dec. 10,...
Appeals Court: Arkansas Checkpoint Unconstitutional, DUI Conviction Dismissed
Dec 11 2015 // Arkansas appeals court judges have reversed and dismissed a drunken-driving conviction, ruling that it resulted from an unconstitutional sobriety checkpoint. The Little Rock Democrat-Gazette reports that Jeremy Whalen was...
Arkansas Gov. Replaces Health Insurance Exchanges Board Members
Dec 3 2015 // Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has replaced the chairman and one other member of a state board that establishes health insurance exchanges for small-business employees and individual consumers. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette...
Claiming Fictitious Charges, Arkansas Residents Sue Energy Firms
Nov 24 2015 // Residents of Faulkner, Conway and Van Buren counties have filed a class action lawsuit against five energy companies claiming they made fictitious deductions and charges against royalty owners. The Log Cabin Democrat...
Health Insurers in Arkansas Owed More than $7.1M in Rebates for 2014
Nov 23 2015 // Arkansas consumers and businesses are owed more than $7.1 million from health insurers because those companies collected too much in premiums last year than what they spent on medical care, according to federal...
Arkansas Man Who Had Surgery on Wrong Side of Brain Awarded $2M
Nov 20 2015 // The family of an Arkansas man left in an impaired state after an operation on the wrong side of his brain has been awarded $2 million by the state’s claims commission. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the...
Oil Company Prevails in Suit Against Insurers over Pipeline Rupture
Nov 16 2015 // An Arkansas federal jury has awarded an oil company nearly $72 million in damages from lost income and expenses stemming from the breach of a pipeline carrying oil from Louisiana to Arkansas. In litigation heard in federal...
Arkansas Sets Workers’ Comp Benefits for 2016
Nov 13 2015 // The Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission has determined that the maximum weekly workers’ comp rates for 2016 for covered accidents will be $646 for total disability (TD) and $485 for permanent partial...
Bus Hits Bridge in Arkansas; 6 Migrant Farmworkers Killed
Nov 8 2015 // A bus ferrying migrant farmworkers from Michigan to Texas ran off a highway and hit an overpass in Arkansas on Nov. 6, ripping off the roof and ejecting passengers onto the interstate. Six people were killed and six...
Oil Company Prevails in Suit Against Insurers over Pipeline Rupture
Nov 5 2015 // An Arkansas federal jury has awarded an oil company nearly $72 million in damages from lost income and expenses stemming from a 2012 breach of a pipeline carrying oil from Louisiana to Arkansas. In litigation heard in...
