Core systems

Testifying before Congress, association chief urges use of a scalable system to measure risk companies pose.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank says consumer groups need time to respond to industry arguments against the new agency and efforts to limit its authority.

Consolidating its insurance, wealth and investment units resulted in referrals rising 100% last year, and are up 55% in the first half of 2009.

Insurance executives see the adverse financial climate reflected in their pay packages.

Short-term hard returns may be elusive, but the long view reveals soft returns aplenty.

After issuing a formal white paper on the subject last week, Travelers Companies Inc. also issued a request—to let an independent federal commission regulate rates for hurricane wind coverage.

In the heat of the summer across the wide open fields of middle-America, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies’ (NAMIC) Agricultural Risk Inspection School opened its classrooms this week to insurance loss control specialists, underwriters, managers and supervisors.

Morgan Stanley got the nod as the official IPO coordinator for American International Group Inc. (AIG), according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. AIG has been busy trying to push through an IPO of American International Assurance Co. Ltd. by early next year, and had selected Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank AG as global coordinators for that offering. As reported in Insurance Networking News, AIG also said last week that it was splitting off American Life Insurance Co., or Alico, in anticipation of a public sale of shares in New York.

Hannover Re, Munich Re and Manulife are just some of the insurers that recently saw ratings actions from A.M. Best.

New York Insurance Department statistics show arrests are down and convictions are up.

In an effort to instill confidence in insured retirement strategies by advocating for the consumer, NAVA has rebranded, immediately becoming the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) http://www.IRIonline.org, now based in Washington, D.C. Along with the name change is a new staff focused on ensuring the insured retirement strategies industry thrives in the future, while protecting the consumers who invest in guaranteed income products such as annuities and promoting the highest ethical standards.

The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) is voicing concerns about long-term care legislation currently under consideration by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

The American Insurance Association (AIA) is looking to counter attempts to pass “bad faith” legislation in several states. The AIA contends the bills are an attempt by the plaintiffs’ bar to inject itself and tort principles into the policyholder-insurer relationship and will lead to frivolous lawsuits against insurers.

More than 1,000 members of the Health Insurance Agent & Broker Alliance besieged Senate and House offices on Capitol Hill yesterday.

It’s probably no surprise that 80% of crashes and 65% of near-crashes involve driver distraction. But identifying those distractions—and confirming whether a particular distraction is the cause of an accident—may be harder to prove.

Building a brand appears to be tricky business. This is being proven with the 36-year-old, 110-story black Sears Tower skyscraper now renamed after the London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings.

The initial public offering of American Life Insurance Company (ALICO) may be soon at hand. Alico’s parent, New York-based American International Group, Inc. (AIG) says it will accelerate steps to position ALICO as an independent entity.

Some observers think that we are at the beginning of the end of this financial crisis and its consequences while others believe this is just the end of the beginning. Celent has given its thoughts on the impact of the financial crisis on insurers in a report published in September last year: Bad News on the Street: Insurance IT Strategy and the Financial Crisis.

Under an agreement between the North Carolina Rate Bureau and the state’s insurance regulators that will roll back private auto insurance rates to 2006 levels and freeze them for two years, some North Carolina drivers will share a refund.

The discounts being offered by property and casualty insurers to owners of hybrid vehicles may be a thing of the past. According to a new study, hybrid drivers drive farther, receive more traffic/speeding tickets and incur costlier claims than conventional car drivers.