September 10
The Battle of the Bar Begins a “War” for Insurance E-buyer Protections
The surprising first person account of independent agent Ed Higgins’ growing campaign to protect auto insurance consumers from online “savings” traps This following personal account of an independent agent’s experience spans more than a two-year period and is presented here following many months of correspondence, voice mail messages, e-mail messages, industry trade publication articles, and […]
Perfecting Clients’ Protection is a Moving Target
– CyberTheft is in the News Again – Umbrella Liability Limits—How High is Up? – Deduct Depreciation to Calculate ACV?—Connecticut Provides an Answer – Exclusion Of Injuries To Employees Of Independent Contractors – To be Indemnified for Legal Costs, the Hold Harmless Agreement Must Spell it Out – Exclusion of Injuries To Employees Of Independent […]
Pre-Existing Conditions – Policy Exhaustion
American Arbitration Association New York No-Fault Arbitration Tribunal In the Matter of the Arbitration between Lutheran Medical Center and GEICO AAA Case No. 412012029477 AAA Assessment No. 17 991 24504 12 Brynne L. Haines, Esq., Arbitrator Summary of Issues in Dispute Does Public Health Law which requires insurers to pay for hospital treatment of […]
“Serving on a Board has Never Been so Risky” – Willis
NEW YORK—Increased regulatory, shareholder and media scrutiny combined with volatility in the global economy means that serving on the board of a company has never been so risky, according to Willis Group Holdings (NYSE:WSH), the global insurance broker, which released its latest Boardroom Guide on Executive Risk. Against a backdrop of almost unparalleled financial […]
Impacting the Independent Agency System Model
Every day it becomes more and more evident to me that the Independent Agency System is at a critical junction. What happens going forward is dependent on the speed at which agencies can adjust to the changes in our business. Consumers have had a multi-million dollar plus annual brainwashing to convince them that insurance is […]
Domestic Excess Line Carrier – An Oxymoron?
During the last legislative session, the Excess Line Association of New York proposed and the Senate passed legislation that would allow the establishment of domestic excess line carriers in New York. At first blush this sounds wrong. By their very nature excess and surplus line insurers are “non-admitted” foreign or alien companies that can only […]
What Does “Free Market” Mean in Orwellian Newspeak?
We are accustomed to Newspeak from the federal government, in which words have the opposite of their traditional meaning. For example, there’s what I call UCA, the (Un)affordable Care Act. But now the problem is metastasizing to supposedly conservative publications and nominally free-market think tanks. In an article in The Weekly Standard, Eli Lehrer, president […]
One Side of a Mini Saga
The mini saga of Ed Higgins’s experience vis-à-vis what he identifies as a misleading element in a direct writer’s internet sales program, gets a full, yet clearly one-sided airing in this issue. We have fact checked and read all of the materials provided to us by Mr. Higgins with respect to his experience and found […]
