Declarations

License camera

“It is not storing data at this point or being used for any law enforcement purposes.”

— New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne acknowledging that the city has been operating a camera that scans the license plates of cars passing just blocks from ground zero. The NYPD hopes to use it as part of a $81.5 million high-tech security plan for Lower Manhattan modeled after London’s, the New York Daily News reported.

Innocent drivers

“These are license plates of innocent people, doing nothing more suspicious than coming and going. In a free society, people should be free to come and go as they please, without worrying about being recorded by the New York police department.”

— Donna Lieberman, of the New York Civil Liberties Union, raising privacy questions in light of the NYPD’s use of cameras.

Emerging torts

“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 lookout for emerging mass tort claims related to benzene, lead paint, and welding rods, despite the fact that significant legal hurdles in these cases remain.

Tax reserves

“I’m in favor of tax-deferred reserves for hurricanes, but the industry will only achieve that change if it acts first and gains credibility. Meanwhile, we need to start building protection against the potentially huge costs of hurricanes now.”

— N.Y. Superintendent of Insurance Eric Dinallo announcing his proposal for insurers to pay into a new state catastrophe fund, with possible tax breaks for insurers in the future.

Catalyst for federal action

“While Superintendent Eric Dinallo’s proposal attempts to address the reserve issue, without the proper tax treatment we question the real impact of such a regulation. We hope, however, that this will spur federal consideration of the tax treatment of such reserves.”

— The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, expressing doubts about N.Y. Superintendent Dinallo’s state catastrophe reserve plan. PCI said it agrees that voluntary, tax-deferred, pre-event reserves to fund catastrophe risks is a good idea, but at the federal, not state, level.

Screening panel

“It’s not easy to tell a patient, ‘You have a harm but it’s not anybody’s fault.’ The public perception is: ‘My wife died, therefore somebody made a mistake.’ That’s not always the case. It can be, but not always is.”

— Marilyn Ashcroft, a medical injury screening panel judge for 15 years in Maine, in a special report on medical screening panels by The Associated Press.