Latest California Headlines
All the headlines from our California Topic Page, ordered by recency.
COO Manzitto to Resign from Topa in California
May 17 2017 // Anthony Manzitto, chief operating officer of Calabasas, Calif.-based Topa Insurance Group, is resigning at the end of this month to pursue another opportunity, according to a letter from President and CEO John Donahue that...
Report: New Medical Coding System Not Yet An Improvement in California Comp
May 17 2017 // A new report shows that an updated medical coding system that went into effect in California a year-and-a-half ago hasn’t done much to better define the characteristics of worker injuries than the old one. A report...
Schnoll Named General Counsel of California Department of Insurance
May 16 2017 // Ken Schnoll has been named general counsel for the California Department of Insurance. Schnoll has more than 30 years of experience, including work in regulatory and transactional matters with health insurers and...
California Crackdown on Brand Advertising Hurts State’s Newcomers
May 16 2017 // California is an ethnically and culturally diverse state, and it is becoming more so with each day. That diversity brings with it economic strength, but also a need for public policy that consciously accounts for the...
Cavignac & Associates in California Names Laforteza Account Administrator
May 16 2017 // San Diego, Calif.-based Cavignac & Associates has named Nicole Laforteza an account administrator within the agency’s employee benefits department. Laforteza’s primary responsibility is to assist the...
Study: Comp Reform Led to Drop in Medical Payments Per Claim in California
May 16 2017 // California’s total costs per workers’ compensation claim with more than seven days of lost time have remained stable after the passage of workers’ comp reform, while most other states experienced an...
Legal and Image Woes Mount For Uber in California
May 15 2017 // A rare order from a federal judge alerting prosecutors to possible criminal misconduct by Uber or a key executive deepens the turmoil swirling around the ridesharing company at a time when it’s grappling with other...
Brightway Adds 5 Women-Owned Insurance Agencies
May 15 2017 // Insurance agency franchise operator Brightway is opening five new personal lines insurance agencies that are owned by women, two of which are the first Brightway agencies to open in California. In addition to California,...
Producer Compliance in California: The Top Three Regulatory Danger Zones
May 15 2017 // Like Big Brother, California’s Department of Insurance is watching you. Okay, perhaps not literally — and certainly not all of you, but the department definitely has its antennae up when it comes to the...
People – West
May 15 2017 // Burns & Wilcox Brokerage named Susanne M. Waite vice president and senior broker in its San Francisco, Calif., office. Waite has more than 30 years of experience in insurance, with 14 years in wholesale. Waite...
Partial Settlement for Victims of California Balcony Fall
May 15 2017 // The victims of a balcony collapse in Berkeley, Calif., that killed six college students have reached a settlement with some of the companies they sued in 2015. The settlements are confidential, said lawyers for the...
Regulators in California Hit PG&E with $8.3M Fine for Deadly Wildfire
May 15 2017 // Regulators say they have fined Pacific Gas and Electric Co. $8.3 million for failing to maintain a power line that sparked a massive blaze in Northern California that destroyed 549 homes and killed two people. The...
Weak Safety Standards Caused California Exxon Refinery Blast, Agency Says
May 15 2017 // The U.S. Chemical Safety Board concluded in a report issued earlier this month that a 2015 explosion at a Torrance, Calif., refinery then owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. could have been prevented. “This explosion and near...
Earthquake Authority Creates Online Home Vulnerability Evaluator
May 15 2017 // The California Earthquake Authority has created an online tool to help home inspection specialists evaluate a house’s vulnerability to earthquake damage. The online tool, QuakeGrade, uses information entered by an...
California Court Denies Review of Insurer Challenge to Commissioner’s Advertising Decision
May 12 2017 // The California Supreme Court this week rejected a petition for review by Mercury Insurance and a coalition of insurance industry groups in a case that pitted them against California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. The...
Global Temps Could Hit 1.5°C Target in 9 Years: Research
May 11 2017 // Believe it or not, the planet could be much warmer in the next few years, according to new research. The research, published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, indicates that Earth could be 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit...
State Farm Issues $13.3M in Refunds to California Policyholders
May 11 2017 // California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced today that State Farm has issued refunds totaling $13.3 million for overcharged premiums to 241,356 California consumers in compliance with his rate reduction order...
Heffernan Names Van Aken Assistant Vice President in California
May 11 2017 // Heffernan Insurance Brokers has named Michelle Van Aken assistant vice president in the benefits department of the Menlo Park, Calif. office. Van Aken brings has more than a decade of employee benefits experience ranging...
Burns & Wilcox Names Posner Director of High Net Worth in California
May 11 2017 // Burns & Wilcox has added Heather Posner as an associate vice president and director of its high net worth practice in Los Angeles, Calif. Posner will specifically be focused on expanding the firm’s high net worth...
‘Poaching’ Suits Like Aon v. Alliant: Nothing Personal, Just Routine Business
May 11 2017 // An ongoing legal battle between two large national insurance brokerage firms over employee poaching is a byproduct of a hazard faced in the financial services industries where relationships and knowledge of business...
