Washington News

AIG Being Pressured to Lower Employee Retention Bonuses

The U.S. Treasury Department is pushing American International Group to cut big pay incentives it claims were needed to keep staff, but which have stoked a controversy over pay at taxpayer-supported firms. Treasury’s “pay czar” has informed AIG management that …

Washington Insurance Agency Partners with Financial Planner

Washington’s Feek Justice Financial has entered into a partnership with personal and commercial lines independent agency, Conover Insurance, according to a company news release. As a result of the new partnership, Conover Insurance has a new division that will operate …

Successful IPO by Insurance Firm Verisk Analytics Stirs Hopes for More

Verisk Analytics Inc., an insurance services firm that owns ISO and is partly owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, soared in its first day of trading Wednesday, and stirred hopes that the appetite for such offerings is warming. Shares of …

States Give a ‘Thumbs Up’ to Fingerprinting Insurance Producers

Regulators Say Fingerprinting Keeps Criminals Out of the Business Don’t be alarmed, but there are convicted criminals roaming around the country acting as insurance producers. They could be robbers, forgers, possibly even rapists. They got their producer licenses in states …

Sheffield Joins Georgia Insurance Commissioner Race

One Priority Will be Growing the Captive Sector, Says Former Department Employee Attorney Maria Sheffield has become the latest candidate to enter the Republican primary to be the next insurance commissioner in Georgia. Sheffield is an attorney with Burr, Forman …

States Give a ‘Thumbs Up’ to Fingerprinting Insurance Producers

Regulators Say Fingerprinting Keeps Criminals Out of the Business Don’t be alarmed, but there are convicted criminals roaming around the country acting as insurance producers. They could be robbers, forgers, possibly even rapists. They got their producer licenses in states …

Business Moves

Willis, Ireland Willis Group Holdings Limited wants to change the company’s place of incorporation from Bermuda to Ireland. Shareholders will vote on the measure at a meeting in three or four months. The change also requires the approval of the …

Health Rates Rose Fast in West

Family health care premiums rose an estimated three to five times faster than earnings for workers in Western states from 2000 through 2009, according to a report issued by the consumer health organization Families USA. In California, for example, family …

Lava-Listed on Hawaii’s Big Island

Insurers’ Use of Lava Maps to Gauge Risk Doesn’t Set Well With Some Homeowners The U.S. Geological Survey’s 35-year-old maps of lava danger zones in this southern corner of Hawaii’s Big Island are a tableau of earthy colors and odd …

It Figures

$4 Million The estimated cost to build a tsunami evacuation building, or TEB, on the Oregon coast. It would sit about 15 feet above the water on pilings, allowing water to flow under it. Proponents says such a building would …