Latest California Headlines

All the headlines from our California Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Paragon Names Bay-Weber President of Excess And Surplus in California

Apr 25 2016 // Paragon Insurance Holdings LLC in California has named Jill Bay-Weber president of its excess and surplus commercial business division. Bay-Weber has been responsible for the development and underwriting of many specialty...

Burnham Benefits Names Corp Senior Account Manager in California

Apr 25 2016 // Burnham Benefits Insurance Services Inc. has named Sara Corp a senior account manager. Corp will be located in the Sacramento, Calif. area. She has more than 15 years of experience working in employee benefits. Corp spent...

California Public Utilities Commission Oks New Ridesharing Regulations

Apr 25 2016 // The California Public Utilities Commission has approved new regulations for ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft, including where identifying logos should go and stricter vehicle inspections. The San Francisco Examiner...

California Uber and Lyft Car Rental Decision Delayed

Apr 25 2016 // The first major product of General Motors Co.’s $500 million investment in Lyft Inc. was a short-term car-rental program. Last month, the companies began leasing Chevrolets in Chicago for up to eight weeks as part of...

Groups: California Auto Repair Regs Will Increase Auto Insurance Rates

Apr 22 2016 // As the California Department of Insurance stages hearings on proposed regulations designed to give more money to auto body repair shops, a handful of property/casualty insurance trade associations are voicing their...

Cameras Trained on Mountains around Lake Tahoe Help Wildfire Battle

Apr 22 2016 // A growing network of cameras trained on the mountains around Lake Tahoe is changing the way crews fight Western wildfires by allowing early detection that triggers quicker, cheaper, more tactical suppression than...

Uber Settlement Doesn’t Settle Gig Economy’s Independent Contractor vs. Employee Dispute

Apr 22 2016 // Uber Technologies Inc. resolved the biggest threat to its business by settling with California drivers suing to be treated more like traditional employees, a move that could have broad-ranging implications for companies...

Fatal Occupational Injuries Fell in California in 2014, Latest Report Shows

Apr 21 2016 // The number of Californians who died on the job fell in 2014, according to the latest data available from the California Department of Industrial Relations. The DIR compiled the data from the Census of Fatal Occupational...

American Lung Association Says California Has Nation’s Dirtiest Air

Apr 21 2016 // Millions of Californians live in places with dirty air, according to an annual report card issued this week that ranks two major urban areas in the state as the nation’s most polluted. Bakersfield tops the list for...

California High Court to Review Industry Custom in Liability Cases

Apr 21 2016 // The California Supreme Court has granted review to consider when and if evidence of industry custom and practice is admissible in a strict products liability action. In Kim v. Toyota Motor Corp. plaintiff William Jae sued...

VW Reported Close to $10 Billion Deal with U.S. for Diesel Fraud

Apr 21 2016 // Volkswagen AG has agreed to set aside at least $10 billion to resolve civil claims by the U.S. government and lawsuits by American car owners over diesel vehicles rigged to cheat pollution controls, a person with direct...

Sierras Along California, Nevada Line Long Overdue for Big Quake

Apr 20 2016 // Scientists say the Sierra’s eastern front is long overdue for a large earthquake along the California-Nevada line, where a magnitude-7 event expected on average every 30 years hasn’t occurred in six...

Three Northern California Insurance Firms Merge

Apr 19 2016 // McDermott Costa Insurance, Mello Insurance Services and Myers‐Stevens Mello & Co. have merged. The firms will conduct business out of the McDermott Costa office in San Leandro. Mello Insurance is based in Fremont and...

Former Southern California Fire Official Gets $704K in Age Discrimination Suit

Apr 19 2016 // A jury has awarded $704,000 to a former division chief for the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District who alleged in a lawsuit he was fired due to his age. The Sun newspaper reported that the 62-year-old George...

California Consumer Group Wants State Farm Homeowners Rate Reduction

Apr 18 2016 // State Farm has overcharged its customers roughly $78 million since at least July 2015, and should be required to refund that money, Consumer Watchdog told the California Department of Insurance last week. The group wants...

$5M Deal Reached Between California and TV Component Makers

Apr 18 2016 // California Attorney General Kamala Harris has reached a nearly $5 million settlement with electronics manufacturers accused of fixing prices. Harris’ office announced the deal with LG, Hitachi, Panasonic, Toshiba and...

California Workers’ Comp Committee Votes for Lower Mid-Year Filing

Apr 18 2016 // The governing committee of the California Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau voted unanimously in early April to authorize the WCIRB to submit a mid-year pure premium rate reduction filing to the...

California Court Says Employers Can’t Deny Workers Seats

Apr 18 2016 // Employers cannot deny a worker a place to sit just because they prefer the person stand, and they must consider the employee’s work station, not their overall duties, when determining whether to provide a seat, the...

Government Task Force Will Examine Massive California Natural Gas Leak

Apr 18 2016 // A new U.S. government task force will look into the country’s biggest ever accidental release of methane, which occurred over several months in Los Angeles, Calif., hoping to prevent future leaks of the potent...

RIMS 2016: Star Trek Tools, Workers Comp’s Future Help Draw Biggest Crowd in 13 Years

Apr 15 2016 // Workers’ compensation, geopolitical risks, recalls, disaster response, the captive industry and cyber security were among the topics of sessions held throughout the final day of the annual RIMS conference for risk...