Declarations

Lidle claim

“Quite frankly, there were no eyewitnesses that we’ve been able to find to determine who actually was flying that plane.”

Stacy King, lawyer for the widow of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle who is suing MetLife Inc., claiming she is owed more than $1 million under baseball’s benefit plan. Lidle died in the crash of his small plane Oct. 11. However, the benefit plan contains an exclusion for any incident where the insured is in a “capacity other than as a passenger.” Melanie Lidle argues the life insurer can’t prove that Lidle was piloting the plane. The National Transportation Safety did not reach any conclusions about who was at the controls.

‘Near term sham’

“It is a sham for RMS to claim that its catastrophe models are scientifically sound when they make an ad hoc adjustment at the end of the process that doubles loss projections.”

Birny Birnbaum, executive director, Center for Economic Justice, maintaining that the hurricane models developed by RMS are not as scientific as their creators claim and urging state regulators to reject them as a basis for hiking coastal property insurance rates.

Near term defense

“Our model reflects the widespread agreement among researchers that hurricane activity in the North Atlantic has increased since 1995 and that this period of elevated activity will last for at least another 10 years. The long-term historical average significantly underestimates the hazard posed by hurricanes for the foreseeable future.”

Mitch Sattler, vice president of public policy at RMS, defending his firm’s “near-term” hurricane loss model based on five-year forecasts which has come under fire by some consumer groups.

Lott of disclosure

“Insurance policies are notoriously hard to read and understand because they’re primarily written in complex legalese. While insurance is a legal contract, it also is a product purchased by consumers. That’s why I believe every insurer should include a plain-English description of a homeowner’s policy, prominently displayed on the policy’s first page.”

U.S. Senator Trent Lott, R- Miss., who wants to require insurers to disclose property insurance coverage and noncoverage in plain language on the front page of each homeowner’s policy.

Liberty on compensation

“Liberty Mutual is both pleased and disappointed with the court’s ruling. We are pleased that Liberty Mutual Holding Co. was dismissed from the matter. We are disappointed that the court did not accept our substantive arguments.”

John Cusolito, Liberty Mutual vice president, after a judge declined to dismiss charges begun by former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that the insurer engaged in anti-competitive bid-rigging and broker compensation. The case will proceed.

Topics Hurricane