January 30
Bad Laws/Bad Actors–Part I
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 […]
Banning “Bad Actors”: Cuomo Calls It Curtains For Crooks On Financial Stage
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has advanced a new proposal to further protect consumers from egregious and deceptive behavior in the financial services industry by pushing to empower the state Superintendent of Financial Services to ban certain “bad actors” from the banking and insurance industries for misconduct like that seen in the Wells Fargo scandal. “New […]
Market Shear
New York lost another 191,367 residents to other states during the year ending last July 1, and its population declined for the first time in a decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual population estimates. The latest estimated annual “net domestic migration” loss—equivalent to nearly the entire population of Yonkers, New York’s fourth-largest city—is […]
Claims-Made Trap; ISO Filing New Designated Premises Endorsement—Watch Out; FEMA Buying $1 Billion Flood Reinsurance; DFS Rules Against Troublesome Crime Exclusion; Lower A.M. Best Rating Linked to Increased Risk of Impairment
Claims-Made Trap Claims-made policies are different animals and they can viciously bite the unwary. An example: a Pittsburgh University claim under a Lexington Insurance Company policy. This claim arose out of a professional liability dispute between University of Pittsburgh and Ballinger and Company, the architects on a building renovation of Salk Hall at the University. […]
What Keeps Me Up At Night
Over the years, I’ve written a lot about how independent agents are burdened more and more by business expenses we just didn’t used to have. Some of these costs can be attributed directly to insurance company cost-transferring: things like reductions in commission and profit sharing; front-line underwriting; loss control and even printing policies ourselves, rather […]
Paint The Town Red
For those of us who write personal lines, and especially automobile insurance, we are all well aware of the fact that there are quite a few factors that contribute to the price of an auto insurance policy. For instance, we have age, gender, marital status, territory, type of vehicle, tickets, accidents, consumer credit, color, and […]
Is Your Agency’s Reporting Making You Crazy?
How do you feel about running reports in your agency management system? Does it make you crazy? Or do you just stay away from it altogether because you know it’s inaccurate? Maybe it’s a combination of both. The reality is you cannot manage your agency by your bank account and P&L; you must lead and […]
And Now Donald Trump
The views of an expert on leadership and corporate governance By Richard Torrenzano, edited for the Insurance Advocate Let me share with you, first hand, what is happening in America…and try to explain a presidential election that I know baffles many of you. In short: What happened?…How did it happen?…Why did it happen?… What […]
Insurance Companies Have the Right to Limit Coverage in any Manner Desired
Duty to Defend Limited to Time on Risk in Louisiana When a defendant is uninsured for a particular risk and plaintiffs sue for injuries and illness allegedly incurred in periods of time when the defendant was uninsured and some where it was insured, insured sought defense for the entire period while insurer claimed it was […]
