Declarations

One’s Too Many

“Personal injury lawyers in Texas want to see the telemarketing of injury victims stopped. It is a small percentage of chiropractors and lawyers who engage in this conduct, but even one instance is too many.”

—Allen Rogers, a board member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, commenting on the fact that Texas accident reports will no longer contain phone numbers for crash victims. According to the Texas Committee on Insurance Fraud, the change was made in an effort to end telephone harassment by telemarketers who urge accident victims to begin “free” treatment with the chiropractic clinic that is paying the telemarketer. The Texas Chiropractic Association and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association actively supported the change. It was the result of an agreement reached between the Texas Committee on Insurance Fraud and officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Department of Transportation. The new crash form appears online beginning April 7 for all police departments to use. A majority of police departments in Texas are expected to be using the new crash report form by June 1.

Bodes Well for Buyers

“We expected to see the soft market continue into 2008. … Not only are soft market conditions on-going, they appear to be accelerating, due in no small part to the excellent combined ratios for key markets. This bodes well for insurance buyers this year.”

—John R. Phelps, member of RIMS Board of Directors and director of business risk solutions for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Inc. RIMS reported that commercial lines insurance premiums experienced the largest quarterly drop since 2005 during the first quarter of 2008, according to a survey of risk managers. The average directors and officers liability (D&O) premium fell 19 percent in the first quarter, the largest decrease of all the lines of business tracked by Advisen for the RIMS Benchmark Survey. Continuing the trend of steady, moderate decreases exhibited over the past two years, general liability premiums fell another 2 percent. Workers’ compensation price decreases surged during the first quarter, falling 11 percent.

If They Go Down …

“We don’t want only the government to know, but the citizens we provide service to. If we go down, so will the economy of this country.”

—Dale Burri of Greenbrier, Ark., a driver for J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. Arkansas truckers parked their rigs on April 1 as part of a national protest over high fuel prices that independent operators say is putting them out of business. Burri said the independent drivers handle loads that the big freight haulers like Hunt don’t have capacity to move. If those small companies and one-man operations were unable to keep driving, Burri said the effect would ripple through the economy. Larry White of Farmington, Mo., who was among the truckers parking their rigs, said fuel alone consumes 50 to 60 percent of his gross — filling a 300-gallon tank easily costs more than $1,000. And he said insurance, taxes, maintenance, fees and other expenses are leaving him with no profit.

Topics Texas