When a corporation doing business across many states runs into significant financial difficulty, it has two principal courses of action available under the US bankruptcy laws: reorganize or be liquidated. In either case, the Bankruptcy Court oversees the process with all affected parties being represented. Management itself may seek reorganization, but any plan has to […]
New York’s new Superintendent of Financial Services, Maria Vullo, was confirmed less than a year ago, but has already put her own mark on the position. She was on the job adding staff and implementing policy even before confirmation—an unprecedented move in the annals of the DFS and its predecessor Insurance Department. She has appeared […]
On the first day of the new session of the NY State Legislature, the Senate Insurance and Health committees held a joint forum on the failure of Health Republic Insurance Company of New York, the largest of the non-profit health insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act. State regulators shut down Health Republic last […]
In December, Governor Cuomo vetoed two bills intended by their sponsors to strengthen New York’s freedom of information law, or FOIL. In his veto message the Governor stated: “While I appreciate the Legislature’s attempt to further transparency in government, these bills provide an unworkable, inequitable, and piecemeal approach to FOIL reform.” Sounds like the legislation […]
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Hope springs eternal in the human breast ~Dante’s Inferno ~Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man No matter how discouraging, frustrating or bad the year has been, the prospect of a new year always seems to evoke a sense of optimism for a better tomorrow. A new year: a […]
The new Spielberg/Hanks movie “Bridge of Spies” is by all accounts a relatively factual telling of a 1950s Cold War drama played out on the front pages of the press with little public knowledge of the real drama occurring behind the scenes. The movie’s hero is an insurance lawyer from Brooklyn, James B. Donovan, who […]
The Wall Street Journal has – wittingly or unwittingly – underscored the conundrum that is NY’s Department of Financial Services. Its October 26 article headed “New York Bank Regulators Exit After Clash With Governor Cuomo’s Office,” reporting on the resignation of the Department’s acting superintendent, makes no reference at all to insurance. The October 30 […]
Insurance producers can be forgiven for their skepticism toward regulatory efforts to create a uniform national licensing process. Over the past couple of decades, as producers found it competitively necessary to expand their reach beyond their home state, they were introduced to the wonderful world of state individuality – each jurisdiction with its own set […]
Anyone who has travelled in or visited the Southeastern US is likely to be familiar with kudzu, the ubiquitous climbing vine that seems to have swallowed large chunks of landscape, invading and conquering whole forests in an unstoppable march. Kudzu, a plant native to Japan and China, was introduced in the 1920s as forage, and […]
One of the most important tasks in advising insurance company or producer management over the years has been to stress the importance of reporting violations – no matter how minor, incidental or innocent – to the regulatory authorities. The challenge is to overcome management’s fear of repercussions that often outweighs the potential consequences of not […]
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