National News

Verisk Product Scores Properties on Flood Risk; Could Replace Outdated Flood Maps

Data analytics firm Verisk is touting the launch of WaterLine, an underwriting tool that scores flood risk for all properties in the contiguous United States, helping identify homes and businesses vulnerable to flood. The product scores properties on a 0-to-100 …

Judge Upholds Bayer/Monsanto Roundup Cancer Liability But Slashes Award

Bayer AG failed to persuade a California state judge to set aside a jury’s verdict in the first trial over allegations that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, but the judge said damages should be slashed to $78.6 million from …

Major Surgery Patients Without Opioids Have Shorter Hospital Stays: Research

Surgeons at an Ohio hospital have developed a treatment protocol that they say sends people home after operations without any opioids to manage their pain, leading to shorter hospital stays. “Over 75 percent of our elective colorectal patients underwent surgery …

Insurtech Profile: Kordinator Adds Empathy to Automated Customer Service

Automated customer service is a fact of life. In fact, many people are more comfortable sharing personal details with a machine than with a human. But automation must appreciate that not every customer is a 40 year-old college graduate, with …

Insurance Broker Hays Companies to Be Brown & Brown’s Biggest Acquisition

Brown & Brown Inc. has agreed to acquire the assets of the Hays Companies insurance operations. The deal for the Minnesota-based insurance broker with $200 million in revenues marks the largest acquisition ever by Brown & Brown in its 75-year …

As Tornadoes Shift Eastward, Scientists Explore Why

Over the past few decades tornadoes have been shifting — decreasing in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas but spinning up more in states along the Mississippi River and farther east, a new study shows. Scientists aren’t quite certain why. Tornado activity …

How States Are Battling Distracted Driving

Like many diligent public servants, Georgia state Representative Ed Setzler enjoys crowing about a nice, tidy highway project. In a Sept. 8 Facebook video, the Republican appeared to be doing just that from behind the wheel of a car. This …

AIR Worldwide Develops Probabilistic Model for Global Cyber Risks

Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide announced it has developed a probabilistic model for cyber risk, which is capable of accounting for security breach and cloud service provider downtime incidents for insurance portfolios worldwide. AIR’s probabilistic cyber model estimates the …

Conservative Ex-Google Engineer’s Bias Complaint Goes to Arbitration

The engineer who sued Google after he was fired for blasting the company with allegations of anti-conservative bias won’t get his day in court after all. James Damore’s claims against the Alphabet Inc. unit will be heard behind closed doors …

To Insure Cyber or Not to Insure Cyber: Cautions and Caveats for Carriers

While there are some issues with the data, virtually every report shows the cyber insurance market growing. Aon Benfield had it growing 37 percent last year to $1.8 billion. It’s profitable and the loss ratio is in the 30s or …

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