Monthly Archives: <span>May 2015</span>

Insurer to Pay $300,000 in Michigan Scared-to-Death Case

An insurance company has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit over the death of an 85-year-old man who may have been scared to death before his car slammed into a tractor-trailer in suburban Detroit. The settlement ends a …

$42M ‘Nose-to-Tail’ Upgrade Planned for 2 Hurricane Hunter Planes

The hurricane planes known affectionately as “Miss Piggy” and “Kermit” are getting new Rolls-Royce engines, new wings and better radar. Every hurricane season for nearly four decades, the two technologically packed planes have flown into storms at speeds of up …

Insurers Dealing With Flooded Homes and Submerged Cars in Texas

Suffering its wettest month on record, many parts of Texas are still recovering from the most recent severe storms and flooding. To date, Houston’s Hobby airport recorded 12.34 inches of rainfall while Sugar Land, located just outside Houston, recorded 17.79 …

Hacker Case Points to Deeper Plane Safety Issues

Security researcher Chris Roberts made headlines last month when he was hauled off a plane in New York by the FBI and accused of hacking into flight controls via his underseat entertainment unit. Other security researchers say Roberts – who …

Google’s Self-Driving Cars Equipped With Brakes, Steering Wheels Tested This Summer

Google Inc will begin testing self-driving cars of its own design on public roads this summer, but they will have steering wheels and brakes, which is not what the company described a year ago. Engineers will operate 25 prototype vehicles, …

NOAA Predicts Mostly Quiet Atlantic Hurricane Season

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season will likely be below-normal. But that’s no reason to believe coastal areas will have it easy, say the weather experts at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). For …

Named Insured’s Decision to Reject Higher UM Limits Was Not Binding on an Additional Insured

The Florida Supreme Court recently considered whether the original policyholder’s signed rejection form, rejecting higher limits of UM coverage, applied to the original insured’s daughter who later became the sole named insured under the policy. In Chase v. Horace Mann …

Jewelry Theft Losses Increased by More Than $11M in 2014

Despite a decline in the number of jewelry store robberies and burglaries in 2014, dollar losses increased by more than $11M, according to John Kennedy, president of Jewelers Security Alliance (JSA). Kennedy and Scott Guginsky, vice president of JSA, discussed …

Continuing Profitability for P/C Insurers as Results Deteriorate

Private U.S. property/casualty insurers’ net income after taxes fell to $55.5 billion in 2014 from $63.4 billion in 2013, with insurers’ overall profitability as measured by their rate of return on average policyholders’ surplus dropping to 8.4 percent from 10.2 …

Federal Auto Safety Watchdog Showing its Bite

The U.S. auto safety watchdog, long criticized as toothless and slow, is showing both bark and bite under its new boss – a testimony to his credentials as a safety expert and a hardening of the administration’s policy after a …