Articles by Kenneth J. St. Onge

Direct Writers Continue Battle for Massachusetts Auto Market

Direct writers continue to target the Massachusetts personal auto insurance market, as one major national carrier announced it has written its first policy in the state and another says it will begin writing direct in Massachusetts as early as the …

Court: Insurer Must Indemnify Contractor in Mass. ‘Sick Building’ Case

A federal court ruled that an insurer has a duty to defend and indemnify a flooring company which installed carpets and tiles in a Massachusetts office that were so fume-ridden, they made the building unusable. In a closely watched legal …

Office Oddballs Make Everyone Better

Insurance agency managers could learn a lot from a beet-farming, volunteer sheriff and paper salesman like Dwight Schrute. Schrute, the character played by Rainn Wilson on NBC’s “The Office,” is an oddball whose eccentricities and awkward interactions leave his coworkers …

Office Oddballs Make Everyone Better

Insurance agency managers could learn a lot from a beet-farming, volunteer sheriff and paper salesman like Dwight Schrute. Schrute, the character played by Rainn Wilson on NBC’s “The Office,” is an oddball whose eccentricities and awkward interactions leave his coworkers …

Office Oddballs Make Everyone Better

Insurance agency managers could learn a lot from a beet-farming, volunteer sheriff and paper salesman like Dwight Schrute. Schrute, the character played by Rainn Wilson on NBC’s “The Office,” is an oddball whose eccentricities and awkward interactions leave his coworkers …

DCAP Morphs from Agency Franchiser into Insurer

DCAP Group Inc., an upstate New York franchiser of independent agencies, is ditching its franchise insurance business as part of a strategic move to exit the retail insurance business as it morphs into a reconstituted property/casualty insurer. The move comes …

What Agents Want

Money is the lifeblood of any business. But when it comes to running insurance agencies, money isn’t the main thing that principals look for when they do business with a certain carrier. Claims handling, it turns out, is the truly …

Court: Insurer Must Indemnify Contractor in Mass. ‘Sick Building’ Case

A federal court ruled that an insurer has a duty to defend and indemnify a flooring company which installed carpets and tiles in a Massachusetts office that were so fume-ridden, they made the building unusable. In a closely watched legal …

Narragansett Bay Now Licensed to Write in New Jersey

Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based Narragansett Bay Insurance Co. said it’s been granted a license to write property and casualty insurance in New Jersey. New Jersey would be the fourth state where the company can write coverage — inculding Rhode Island, Massachusetts …

The Fire-Ready World

Arsonists’ handiwork has dominated headlines across much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic over the last several months. Earlier this year, in southeast Pennsylvania, an alleged group of firebugs torched dozens of buildings in one community before authorities finally caught them. …