Claims Journal

Climate Battles are Moving into the Courtroom, and Lawyers are Getting Creative

LONDON/WASHINGTON/GENEVA — Climate change may be having its day in court. With the slow pace of international climate negotiations, lawyers from Switzerland to San Francisco are increasingly filing lawsuits demanding action. And they are getting crea...

Posted: Jul 06, 2020

Russian Watchdog Seeks $2B in Damages From Nornickel Over Arctic Fuel Spill

Russia’s environmental watchdog has asked a power subsidiary of Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel to pay almost 148 billion roubles ($2 billion) in damages over an Arctic fuel spill in Siberia. Rosprirodnadzor said in a statement on Monday that it...

Posted: Jul 06, 2020

Refiner Phillips 66’s Return-to-Work Policy Stirs Unease as Virus Flares

About 20 employees of U.S. oil refiner Phillips 66 tested positive at its Texas headquarters for COVID-19 in recent weeks, people familiar with the matter said, alarming employees as the company strove to keep staff working in its offices. Texas …

Posted: Jul 06, 2020

Insurers May Rethink Property Risk After Unprecedented Losses From Riots

The civil disturbance that started in Minneapolis after the killing by police of George Floyd spread to 20 other states — an unprecedented property insurance catastrophe that will likely impact policy renewals and could even persuade some insurers to...

Posted: Jul 06, 2020

PG&E Exits Bankruptcy After Wildfires Pushed It to Brink of Ruin

Nearly a year and a half after collapsing under $30 billion in liabilities from wildfires sparked by its equipment, PG&E Corp. has emerged from the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history. The California power giant said in a statement Wednesday …

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Gun Demand Is Off the Charts in America

U.S. consumers are rushing to buy guns as the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over police brutality combine with U.S. presidential politics to fuel unprecedented demand. Firearm background checks compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a prox...

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Novartis Settles U.S. Fraud Lawsuit Over Sham Speaker Programs

NEW YORK — Novartis AG agreed to pay $678 million to settle a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the U.S. government accusing the Swiss drugmaker of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to doctors to induce them to prescribe its …

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Former Indivior CEO Pleads Guilty in U.S. in Opioid Addiction Treatment Probe

Shaun Thaxter, the former chief executive of drugmaker Indivior Plc, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a criminal charge arising out of a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the marketing of its opioid addiction treatment Suboxone. Thaxter pleaded...

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Nornickel Draws Up Permafrost Monitoring Plan After Arctic Fuel Spill

MOSCOW, July 2 — Russia’s Norilsk Nickel , a major global nickel and palladium producer, has prepared a long-term program to monitor permafrost and remedy environmental damage after an Arctic fuel spill in its home city, it said on Thursday. …

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Weinstein Reaches Tentative $19M Deal With Accusers

NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein and his former studio’s board have reached a nearly $19 million settlement with dozens of his sexual misconduct accusers, New York state’s attorney general and lawyers in a class-action lawsuit said Tuesday. The agreement...

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Portland’s Downtown Police Precinct Boarded Up

PORTLAND, Ore. — Workers have installed plywood over windows and washed off graffiti near the entrance to the downtown Portland police headquarters after police say windows were smashed and plywood was removed from doors. The vandalism happened after...

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Business News: Hi Marley, Cambridge Mobile Telematics, Triple-I and The Institutes

Hi Marley Raises $8M in Funding Round Hi Marley, a chatbot designed for the insurance industry, announced that it raised $8 million from investors, bringing total financing for the company to $18.6 million. The Boston based insurtech said the new …

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Claims People: SCA, AqualisBraemar and Munich Re

SCA Appraisal Appoints Director and Managers SCA Appraisal has created a new Customer Success division and appointed Monica Diaz as its senior director. SCA, based in Burbank, California, appointed Lucano Figueroa to lead the division’s Financial Ser...

Posted: Jul 02, 2020

Wirecard Exposes Big 4 Accounting Lapses Endure Post-Enron

Two decades of financial disasters from Enron Inc.’s collapse in 2001 to Wirecard AG’s meltdown have left the Big Four accounting firms facing a major cultural problem that regulators may struggle to resolve. The 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) miss...

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

Lloyd’s Calls For State-Backed ‘Black Swan’ Reinsurance

LONDON — “Black Swan” reinsurance schemes backed by governments could help businesses get insurance pay-outs after huge shocks such as the coronavirus pandemic, Lloyd’s of London said. Commercial insurance market Lloyd’s has said insurers worldwide w...

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

Boeing 737 MAX Report May Boost Effort to Reform U.S. Airplane Certification

WASHINGTON — A new report into the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to certify the Boeing 737 MAX may help proponents seeking reforms to the long-standing practice of delegating some aircraft certification tasks to manufacturers. On Wednesd...

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

COVID-19 Treatment to Cost Private Insurers $3,120

The maker of a drug shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill COVID-19 patients says it will charge $2,340 for a typical treatment course for people covered by government health programs in the United States and other developed countries. …

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

Wildfires Burn in California and Arizona, Residents Return After Utah Blaze

NILAND, Calif. — A wind-driven wildfire destroyed homes and forced evacuations as it tore through a rural Southern California desert town near the Salton Sea, authorities said Monday. In the meantime, residents who evacuated because of a wildfire in...

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

11th Circuit Refuses to Open ‘Loophole’ for Cruise Line Lawsuits

A plaintiff’s attorney cannot avoid a showdown with a cruise line at the federal courthouse in Miami simply by pleading the case as an action that does not require the court’s jurisdiction under admiralty law, a federal appellate court ruled …

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

A.M. Best Says Commercial Auto Losses Worst in 10 Years

The U.S.commercial automobile insurance segment’s underwriting losses deepened to $4.0 billion in 2019, the segment’s worst loss in 10 years and a continuation of a decade-long trend of worsening underwriting results, according to a new AM Best repor...

Posted: Jul 01, 2020

Nuclear Verdicts Continue to Push Commercial Auto Rates

In the last five or six years, trucking companies have watched their insurance rates climb, and many have found the insurance process daunting. Since 2018, trucking insurers have lost around $1.8 billion due to continued pressure from plaintiffs’ att...

Posted: Jun 30, 2020

Wildfires Are Taking an Unexpectedly Huge Toll on America’s Lungs

During the 2018 Camp Fire, which lasted 17 days and killed 85 people, residents of nearby Northern California communities breathed in enough smoke to equal half a pack of cigarettes. Many of the questions being asked then sound eerily familiar …

Posted: Jun 30, 2020

Viewpoint: Covid-19 Shows That Scientific Journals Need to Open Up

One big change brought on by Covid-19 is that virtually all the scientific research being produced about it is free to read. Anyone can access the many preliminary findings that scholars are posting on “preprint servers.” Data are shared openly …

Posted: Jun 30, 2020

Environmental Groups Propose Tailings Dam Safety Standards

Mining companies should be required to buy private insurance for tailings dams and their board of directors should be held legally responsible for any disasters, a coalition of 140 environmental groups said in a report published on Tuesday. The recom...

Posted: Jun 30, 2020

Fireworks Sparked Utah Wildfire; Blaze in Nevada Partially Contained

LEHI, Utah — Fireworks caused a wildfire in Utah that forced out residents of houses and an apartment building early Sunday before crews managed to turn back the blaze as it encroached on a neighborhood, officials said. A suspect was …

Posted: Jun 30, 2020