Declarations

The rules of attraction

“The program is an effort to attract more property and casualty providers to our state and to increase the private market capacity by 15 percent.”

— Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance Jim Donelon, explaining the goal of the recently launched Insure Louisiana Incentive Program, which will use $100 million in state funds to provide incentives for property insurers to write business in the state.

A train wreck

“It is simply a train wreck waiting to happen.”

— Jerry Johns, president of the Southwestern Insurance Information Service, commenting in an Associated Press article on the potential funding problems that would be faced by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), as well as the state in general, should a major hurricane hit heavily populated areas of the Texas coast. Johns said TWIA is the primary market for windstorm coverage in the 14 Texas coastal counties where the association writes business. TWIA had 207,000 policies at the end of September and expects 215,000 to 220,000 by year’s end. AP

Because it was just so cool

“I am just glad that someone took it because it was cool and not just for the copper. … With so much copper theft going on these days, we were afraid that it had been scrapped for the copper and we would never see it again.”

— Sherry Mash, an employee at Cabot, Ark.-based Moore Heat and Air, commenting on the return of the “Copper Chopper,” a “motorcycle” made of air conditioning parts. The bike, made by workers at the heating-and-air conditioning company, was reported stolen from the Bikes, Blues & BBQ festival in Fayetteville. Employees built it with copper tubing, tubing insulation, a refrigerant drum, a blower motor, refrigerant gauges, nut drivers, two squirrel cage blower housings and sheet metal. The motorcycle had been picked up by someone who was told everything left behind was trash. The company paid a $200 reward for the motorcycle, which won the creative contest at the
motorcycle festival. The nonfunctioning motorcycle is the company’s mascot.

What kind of toxic tort?

“If you do a Google search on benzene, you see a lot of advertising from attorneys nationwide. Benzene is an emerging and sexy toxic tort.”

— Daniel Bodell, partner, Gordon & Rees, to attendees of the Casualty Loss Reserve Seminar, advising actuaries to be on the look out for emerging mass tort claims related to benzene, lead paint, and welding rods, despite the fact that significant legal hurdles in these cases remain.

Topics Texas Auto