Monthly Archives: <span>September 2016</span>

Fitch: Excess/Surplus Insurance Lines Expected to Outperform Standard Market

Excess and surplus (E&S) underwriters will likely outperform standard market underwriters in 2017 even if underwriting profitability weakens in 2017, according to Fitch Ratings’ latest U.S. Excess and Surplus Lines Market Review report. E&S underwriters outperformed the property/casualty (P/C) industry’s …

Yahoo Password Breach Equivalent to Ecological Disaster

As investors and investigators weigh the damage of Yahoo’s massive breach to the internet icon, information security experts worry that the record-breaking haul of password data could be used to open locks up and down the web. While it’s unknown …

New York City Row House Blast Kills Fire Battalion Chief

A battalion chief who had been considered a rising star in the Fire Department of New York was killed Tuesday when a row house exploded as he was supervising an evacuation following a report of a gas leak, and authorities …

Researchers Develop Natural Disaster Early Warning System

Earlier this year, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) was able to detect a gravity wave wafting through space from two colliding black holes billions of years ago. Now a group of researchers at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas has …

Corporate Pilots Skip Safety Checks on 18% of Flights

Corporate pilots routinely take off without performing required safety checks, a study of thousands of flights by a trade group has found. Prompted by the 2014 crash of a corporate jet that killed billionaire Lewis Katz, which occurred after pilots …

Damage to Property Without Market Value

The amount and dollar value of insurance claims relating to property loss alone dwarf all other lines of insurance. Water losses in the U.S. result in more than $9 billion in property damage annually. Fire losses result in more than …

CoreLogic: 60,000 New Orleans Homes No Longer in High Risk Flood Zone

New data analysis released by CoreLogic indicates that in the Orleans Parish, which encompasses the city of New Orleans, nearly 60,000 homes with a reconstruction cost value of more than $12 billion will no longer be located in a designated …

Energy Drinks, With or Without Alcohol, Contribute to Drunk Driving

Highly caffeinated energy drinks (EDs) have been of concern to the public-health community for almost a decade. Many young people consume EDs with alcohol to decrease alcohol’s sedative effects and stay awake longer, enabling them to drink more alcohol. Adding …

Deadly Police Shootings Prompt Questions in Charlotte’s Use of Body Cams

The fatal shooting of a black man by a police officer in Charlotte is only the latest shooting to raise questions about how the department uses body cameras. Six people were fatally shot since body cameras were given to all …

G-7 Welcomes U.S. Guidelines on Self-Driving Cars

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Sunday that his counterparts in the Group of Seven nations welcomed U.S. guidelines on regulating self-driving cars and have agreed to work together on creating such standards to maintain safety. “There was actually a …