Claims

While the insurance industry was an early adopter of mobile technology for basic communication functions, it has lagged in developing and implementing internal and customer-facing applications.

Warm weather offers favorable conditions for car thieves, while holidays and cold weather bode well for potential victims, according to a new report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).

Insurers in Britain may have a new data set to consider in their predictive analytics endeavors: the increase in claims due to personal lines property/casualty policyholders’ “do-it-yourself” (DIY) home improvements.

Last decade, car crashes were the leading cause of teen deaths, with 16-year-old drivers possessing crash rates two times greater than 18-to-19-year-old drivers and four times that of older drivers. But Allstate and the National Safety Council think they know how to cut into the 81,000 fatalities resulting from crashes involving teen drivers between 2000 and 2009, claiming in a new report that nationwide GDL laws have the potential to prevent over 2,000 such deaths and save $13.6 billion annually.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has issued a final rule to make available standardized extracts of Medicare claims data to facilitate measuring the performance of providers and suppliers. The rule has significant changes that enable use of clinical data along with the claims data.

A.M. Best's recent catastrophe-related loss estimates reveal a bad first nine months of 2011 for U.S. P&C insurers. According to the agency's briefing “U.S. Property/Casualty Catastrophe Losses Climb to $38.6 Billion for the First Nine Months of 2011,” the estimated total net pretax accident-year catastrophe-related losses were $38.6 billion, up $22.5 billion (140 percent), from an estimated $16.1 billion reported during the same period a year ago.

Fraud is on the rise in the United States and globally, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’s 2011 Global Economic Crime Survey, with cyber crime making the most significant increase in the two years since the firm’s last survey.

A comparison of third-quarter data from 2009, 2010 and 2011 reveals a notable increase in the number of questionable claims submitted, according to a new report issued by the National Insurance Crime Bureau, Des Plaines, Ill. In its third-quarter 2011 questionable claims (QC) referral reason analysis, the Bureau examined six referral reason categories of claims—property, casualty, commercial, workers' compensation, vehicle and miscellaneous—for the quarters listed above.

The introduction of telematic technologies will help improve overall road safety, new data from U.K.-based The Co-operative Insurance shows.

The retail theft claims insurers expect to pay out this holiday weekend may take a back seat to those presented by clients with commercial package policies that include business interruption. CNBC reports that demonstrators are taking the Occupy Wall Street movement to retailers with an organized effort called “Stop Black Friday.”

Torus, a specialty insurer, has implemented Guidewire Software’s ClaimCenter, a claims management system.

According to a new study from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), the extra weight hybrid vehicles carry around because of their battery makes them safer. In fact, the study found that the odds of being injured in a crash are 25 percent lower for people in hybrids, when compared to conventional fuel models.

As technology evolves, it may be that smartphone-toting field personnel are capable of doing their job anytime, anywhere.

In the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, insurers and bankers feuded over directors and officers' liability policies. At issue: whether D&O policies covered claims brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation against a failed bank's officers. Years of messy litigation failed to settle the question conclusively, and insurers responded by tightening their policies with ironclad exclusions of future FDIC claims.

Late yesterday both houses of Congress passed a continuing Resolution which provides for a 30-day extension of the National Flood Insurance Program. The program is now set to expire on Dec. 16, 2011.

People in Portland, Ore. are mad as hell at distracted drivers and they’re not going to take it any more, according to a poll conducted by PEMCO Insurance. The problem is: some of those same drivers admit to the driving-while-distracted behavior, violating safe driving laws on a regular basis.

As President Obama grapples with a complex series of geopolitical issues during his state visit to Australia, he can take solace in the knowledge that his family will be provided for if he is attacked by a man-eating crocodile.

With catastrophe damage creating insured losses across the country, property and casualty insurance carrier results suffered in the first half of 2011.

State Farm Insurance has put a new spin on why people living in the United States should be grateful this Thanksgiving—they are less likely to be burned or have their homes catch fire as a result of cooking a turkey.

A group of 13 U.S. Senators are questioning a provision of the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2011 that would require homeowners and businesses to purchase coverage from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).