Showing posts with label insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insurance. Show all posts
You can probably figure out that buying smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and a home security system will reduce your homeowners insurance rates. After that, the brainstorming gets cloudier. Is there a trampoline in your backyard? A swimming pool? Getting rid of those would help, but if you have homeowners insurance, your agent has probably told you that. [read more]
SUPERHERO WARREN BUFFETT SAVES THE DAY
Five former insurance company executives were found guilty Monday of a scheme to manipulate the financial statements of the world's largest insurance company, American International Group Inc.The defendants, including four former executives including a onetime CEO of General Re Corp., and a former executive of AIG, sat stone-faced as they were convicted of conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud and making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
General Re is part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which is led by the billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
In their closing statements, defense attorneys repeatedly invoked the name of the widely admired Buffett in arguing there was no wrongdoing and only a routine deal between AIG and Gen Re.
Buffett was not charged with any wrongdoing and did not testify at the trial. [...]
Claims for bodily injuries climbed 6.6 percent in the third quarter, said PCI, which does not have fourth-quarter data. That was driven by more expensive hospital visits, which rose 6.7 percent in 2007, according to the Department of Labor.
Automobile owners, take note: You may soon pay more to insure your car, truck or SUV.State Farm and Progressive are leading the push by auto insurers to raise premiums in at least 20 states as the $160 billion industry moves to end two years of price reductions.
So far, the price increases don’t appear to have touched drivers in Kansas and Missouri.
Insurers say they need higher prices to counter climbing repair and medical costs. Allstate, ranked second by premiums, said collision bills rose 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier and payouts for injuries gained 9.3 percent. Safeco Corp., which gets almost half its total premiums from drivers, reported a $19 million loss on auto underwriting.
Rising prices for new vehicles and expenses for labor and replacement parts contributed to a 45 percent increase in car repair costs during the past decade, according to information compiled by the Highway Loss Data Institute in Arlington, Va.
Collision costs rose 2.4 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to data compiled by the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. The cost of auto-body work was up 3.3 percent in 2007, the U.S. Department of Labor reported. [...]
The chairman of the American Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, has found it impossible to calm the panic arising from the sub-prime crisis. Yet all it took was a few casual sentences from Buffett last week to garner headlines around the world and quell a raging storm. Again.
For a few brief moments early last week, it looked as if the world's markets were facing another of those "black" days which pepper modern financial history.Wall Street was teetering on the brink of crashing as the shockwaves from the sub-prime mortgage crisis - in which banks had lent vast sums to high-risk borrowers who were unable to pay back the loans - continued to reverberate.
This time, it was the turn of an obscure branch of financiers - the monoline insurers - to feel the heat. The main job of these little known, secretive companies is to protect institutional investors in bonds against risk.
Basically, if an institution buys a bond, it can take out insurance to cover repayment of the original investment plus the interest.
This is an arcane branch of finance - but vital. If the monolines fail, it could have a devastating impact not only on banks but also on the budgets of thousands of towns, cities and municipalities which had taken out insurance to protect them against losses on their fund-raising bonds.
The effects of such failure would have been catastrophic - and swept around the world.
As share prices from Hong Kong to Wall Street and the City of London shuddered at the very thought, a 78-year-old in Omaha, Nebraska, appeared on television.
If people were worried, he said, then he would shoulder some of the $800bn of insurance risk. "It can be solved at one stroke of the pen," he said.
It was an offer which even for Warren Buffett, with his Midas touch and willingness to take on risks greater than anyone else involved in investment, was audacious in the extreme.
After his intervention, market confidence returned. Share prices rallied across the world with the FTSE 100 index in London climbing 3.5 per cent in a matter of minutes. The Dow Jones also soared. The very suggestion that Buffett might be interested in saving the monoline insurers was enough to convince the financial herd that all might not be lost.
With a big smile, mid-Western drawl and a few gentle words, Warren Buffett saved the day. [...]
Although green products may be sold initially at a premium in some areas, in the future, homeowners who build to greener standards may be seen as lower risks and could be rewarded with insurance discounts or credits. That's already happening on the commercial building side and in auto insurance, where insurers in some states are offering breaks to hybrid-car drivers.
Two major insurers are launching "green" insurance programs that will let homeowners reconstruct their property with more environmentally friendly building materials, appliances and landscaping, even if it costs more than the policy's replacement value.
One major insurer, Fireman's Fund, is launching its "green" insurance program in southern California at no extra charge to its clients, who were hurt by a dozen wildfires that killed seven people and destroyed nearly 2,200 homes in October. And Lexington Insurance Co. is testing a new "green" policy in a handful of East Coast states.
"It ties back into our view about climate change," said Scott Steinmetz, Fireman's director for personal insurance and catastrophe management.
Spurring clients to rebuild to greener standards is an insurer's hedge against climate change, and the worse and more frequent natural disasters that could be brought on by warming global temperatures, he said.
Green insurance products are also a way for insurers to hook a consumer market that's grown increasingly conscious of environmental issues. The budding residential green building market is forecast to grow to $40 billion to $50 billion by 2010 from $7.4 billion today, according to a construction report by McGraw-Hill Cos.
"This has emerged as a new way to attract and retain customers," said David Valzania, vice president of personal lines at Lexington, a unit of American International Group. "We're seizing on what we see as a significantly growing green movement."
Sean Walsh's mother, Patricia, has a policy from Fireman's Insurance, and Sean says he plans to use the green upgrade program to make the new home more environmentally sound -- with a focus on fire safety. Patricia Walsh's $2.3 million home, which she and her late husband John, bought two years ago, was built in the 1980s and remodeled in 2000.
It had some fire-retardant materials in it, Walsh said. "The unfortunate part was that this fire was so hot and so fast."
The new home will likely be built with wood framing that is forest stewardship-certified, which means it has been grown and harvested sustainably. The house will be outfitted with more efficient plumbing fixtures and solar paneling -- ways to save utility costs and resources in water- and energy-strapped southern California.
"My parents had looked at going solar even before this happened," Walsh said. "We had a lot of problems with rolling blackouts. It's expensive to do, but it does pay for itself."
Fireman's is offering other types of green upgrades, including paying for less chemical-heavy paints and carpeting, flooring made from eco-friendly bamboo, and energy-efficient appliances, heating and cooling systems -- even if the upgrades cost more. [...]
"First and foremost, we're back in business in Florida," Allstate spokesman Adam Shores said after the ruling.
In at least a temporary win for Allstate, an appeals court Friday blocked a decision by state regulators that had stopped the insurer from selling new homeowners and auto policies.The 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee issued a stay, setting aside a state order that suspended Allstate's licenses to write new property casualty business.
Tom Zutell, a spokesman for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, said the state expects to ask the court to lift the stay next week and reinstate the suspension.
The ruling gave a reprieve to Allstate agents whose right to sell new homeowners and auto policies was suspended Thursday when the state insurance commissioner issued his order.
"First and foremost, we're back in business in Florida," Allstate spokesman Adam Shores said after the ruling. [...]
A full list of these
savings is available here.
Saul Friedman explains-
All these members of Congress, who earn $185,000 a year and have taxpayer-subsidized health insurance that will last the rest of their lives.
Virtually every presidential candidate would solve the crisis of the 47 million medically uninsured Americans with "individual mandates," requiring that they buy private health insurance just as they must buy auto insurance if they drive.
Democrats would subsidize part of the cost, while Republicans would grant tax credits.
But if the private insurance market is so wonderful and effective, wouldn't it have solved the nation's health care mess by now?[...]
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