It Figures

$1.3 Million

Arkansas will receive $1.3 million out of the $72 million in funds and assets of Martin Frankel recently seized by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Frankel was sent to prison for insurance fraud committed in Arkansas and four other states. Frankel fled the United States in 1999 after defrauding seven insurance companies in five different states, including Arkansas, of more than $200 million. Following his arrest in Germany, Frankel pleaded guilty to insurance fraud, racketeering and money laundering. He was sentenced to nearly 17 years in federal prison. Arkansas’s share of the seized funds, $1.3 million, will go to creditors of Old Southwest Life Insurance Company, the largest of which is the Arkansas Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association which oversaw the transfer of the policies and annuities of Old Southwest Life to a solvent insurance company.

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Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe declared five counties — Benton, Conway, Craighead, Poinsett and Pope — state disaster areas due to the damage caused by thunderstorms and tornadoes on Jan. 7 and 8. Beebe’s declaration releases $250,000 from the Governor’s Disaster Fund to be used by the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management through the Individual Assistance Program. Affected residents in all five counties can apply for assistance by phone at 1-877-828-3362 or at their local Department of Human Services offices.

$3 Quadrillion

Hurricane Katrina victims have filed nearly 500,000 claims against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, seeking a staggering amount of money. One plaintiff is asking for the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion. Insurance companies are among the claimants. The total the dollar figure as of early January 2008, $3,014,170,389,176,410, is sought from some 489,000 claims filed over damage from levee and flood wall failures following the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane. The corps said it has received 247 claims for at least $1 billion apiece, including the one for $3 quadrillion. AP.

$42.5 Million

The American International Specialty Lines Insurance Co. Inc. (AISLIC) will pay $42.5 million to clean up contamination at four industrial facilities run by a bankrupt insured in a suit in which the Department of Justice intervened on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies. The EPA says the case is a reminder to insurance companies that they can be responsible for their bankrupt clients’ contaminated sites. The four sites, formerly owned by Fruit of the Loom, which filed for bankruptcy nine years ago, are located in Michigan, New Jersey and Tennessee.

Topics Pollution Arkansas