Figures

$25 Million

Record snowfall beginning Feb. 11 in the Dallas/Fort Worth area resulted in insured losses of $25 million, the Insurance Council of Texas reported. An estimated 4,200 claims came from auto, residential and commercial property owners. The average claim was approximately $6,000. Dennis Cavanaugh, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in Fort Worth, said the storm produced the largest snowfall on record for a 24-hour period at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.

$8.2 Million

The Louisiana Department of Insurance helped insurance consumers in the state to recover $8.2 million in insurance payments last year. The recovered funds result from insurance claims disputes mediated by the department and are above what the insurance companies originally offered the consumers to settle their claims. Recoveries from property/casualty complaints represented the bulk of the total amount returned to consumers. The overall amount recovered from P/C companies was $5,366,121.44, from 2,707 inquiries and 2,236 filed complaints. Settlements from health insurance complaints brought in nearly $1.6 million. The rest of the money came from inquiries and complaints to the life/annuities division and the Office of Consumer Advocacy.

$1.5 Million

The German conglomerate Bayer CropScience has been ordered to pay $1.5 million to farmers in Arkansas and Mississippi whose rice seed was contaminated with a genetically altered strain. The verdict handed down in federal court in St. Louis was the second against Bayer CropScience for losses sustained by farmers when an experimental variety of rice that the company was testing infiltrated crops. A jury awarded about $2 million to two Missouri farmers in December, and three additional test cases are scheduled for this year involving farmers from Louisiana and Texas, as well as a rice exporter. No punitive damages have been awarded in any of the verdicts. About 6,000 rice producers have filed claims against Bayer since the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in August 2006 that trace amounts of the genetically modified Liberty Link rice were found in U.S. long-grain rice stocks, according to Don Downing, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the first two cases. AP

Topics Agribusiness