Insurance Journal

People Moves: DiPhilippo Joins Alliant Employee Benefits; Cormier Joins Alliant Americas in Boston

DiPhilippo Joins Alliant Insurance Services’ Employee Benefits Team Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, hired Anthony DiPhilippo as vice president, employee benefits, health and welfare consultant within its employe...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Ping An Profit Rises Nearly 7% as Market Recovery Bolsters Returns

Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. said profit rose nearly 7% in the first half, after a stock-market recovery helped bolster investment returns at China’s second-largest insurer by market value. Net income climbed to 74.6 billion yuan ($10.5 billio...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Vanderbilt Plans $520 Million Palm Beach Campus, Tapping into Migration of Wealth

Vanderbilt University is asking local Florida officials to approve its proposal to build a $520 million campus in the wealthy Palm Beach area, tapping into a growing region transformed by new outposts of financial firms. The Nashville-based school en...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

WV Volunteer Fire Official Pleads to Insurance Fraud After Burning Down His Home

A former West Virginia volunteer fire official is awaiting sentencing after he admitted to setting fire to his home, filing an insurance claim, and using the fire department’s credit card for personal gain. Donald A. Ennis, 43, of St. Albans, &...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Scrap Metal Dealer Pleads Guilty in Multistate Catalytic Converter Theft Conspiracy

A scrap metal dealer with a Virginia shop pled guilty this week to theft and tax charges related to his participation in a multi-state catalytic converter theft conspiracy. According to court documents, Theodore Nicholas Papouloglou, 45, used his bus...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Acquitted Yale Student Sues Women’s Groups for Calling Him a Rapist

An expelled Yale University student who was acquitted of sex assault charges in 2018 is now suing 15 women’s advocacy groups and an attorney for defamation after being called a “rapist” in a court brief that they filed in a …

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Frequency of Deadly Hurricanes Has Jumped 300%

New research indicates that what used to be the 100-year hurricane will now happen every 25 years, according to Deep Sky Research, a Montreal-based carbon removal project developer. The new report analyzes data within the U.S. via its Hurricane Rainf...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Woman Who Faced Eviction Over 3 Emotional Support Parrots Wins $165,000

A woman who faced eviction from her Manhattan apartment over her three emotional support parrots will be paid $165,000 in damages plus $585,000 for her apartment under a consent decree announced by federal prosecutors. The consent decree announced Mo...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Amazon Is Boss of Subcontracted Drivers, Labor Board Prosecutors Say

Amazon.com Inc. was legally the boss of a group of subcontracted delivery drivers, US labor board prosecutors have concluded, rejecting the company’s claims that workers in its sprawling delivery network aren’t its employees. The general...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Uber to Begin Offering Self-Driving Cruise Cars, Shares Fall

Uber Technologies Inc. plans to start offering self-driving Cruise LLC cars to customers on its ride-hailing platform next year. Once the multiyear partnership between Uber and Cruise begins, an Uber rider requesting a qualifying ride will have the o...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Montana Asbestos Clinic Seeks to Reverse Court Finding That It Submitted Hundreds of False Claims

An attorney for a health clinic in a Montana town polluted with deadly asbestos asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to reverse a lower court determination that it submitted hundreds of false claims on behalf of patients. That judgment …

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Authors’ Class Action Targets AI Company Anthropic for Copyright Infringement

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has been hit with a class-action lawsuit in California federal court by three authors who say it misused their books and hundreds of thousands of others to train its AI-powered chatbot Claude. The complaint,...

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Western Alaska Yup’ik Village Floods as River Rises From a Series of Storms

Storm-battered residents in the western Alaska village of Napakiak were preparing for the third storm in a week Tuesday, days after a minister had to use a front loader to free people from flooded homes. Napakiak, a Yup’ik village of …

Posted: Aug 23, 2024

Hiscox Confirms Chairman Bloomer Died on Sinking of Yacht Off Coast of Sicily

Hiscox Ltd. issued a statement confirming that the insurer’s chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and Bloomer’s wife, Judy, died in the tragic sinking of the Bayesian off the coast of Sicily on Monday, Aug. 19. “We are deeply shocked and sadden...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Hiscox Confirms Chairman Bloomer Died During Yacht Accident Off Coast of Sicily

Hiscox Ltd. issued a statement confirming that the insurer’s chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and Bloomer’s wife, Judy, died in the tragic sinking of the Bayesian off the coast of Sicily on Monday, Aug. 19. “We are deeply shocked and sadden...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Is Heat Causing Branches to Fall Off Trees? Scientists Aren’t Sure

In 2003, as Paris sweltered through a heat wave that would go on to kill an estimated 15,000 people across France, one oasis of cooler air remained off limits: the city’s roughly 400 public parks. They were temporarily closed due …

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

AM Best Revises Outlook for Missouri Farm Bureau Group

AM Best has revised the outlooks to negative from stable and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICRs) of “a-” (Excellent) of Farm Bureau Town and Country Insur...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Cyber Resilience Overestimation Leads to Business Continuity Issues, Ransom Payments

New research commissioned by Cohesity, an AI-powered data security firm, reveals organizations overestimate their cyber resilience capabilities and maturity, leading to significant business continuity disruptions and ransom payments. The Cohesity Glo...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

U.S. Transport Safety Board Opens Investigation Into Tesla Crash in California

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into a crash and fire involving a Tesla electric semi-truck on a California highway, the agency said late Wednesday. The NTSB will carry out the safety investigation along with...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Crew Evacuated From Houthi-Stricken Oil Tanker in Red Sea

The crew of a ship that suffered several attacks in the Red Sea has been evacuated with naval support. Delta Tankers, which operates the Sounion, said Thursday that plans are now in place to move the vessel to a safer …

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Propane Blast Levels Pennsylvania Home, Kills Woman and Injures Man

An explosion that leveled a home in northeastern Pennsylvania, killing a woman and leaving a man seriously injured, was apparently caused by a propane leak, state police said. The blast in Jefferson Township, near Scranton, was reported around 2 p.m....

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Why the Canadian Freight Rail Halt Will Roil North American Supply Chains

Canada’s two main freight rail companies locked out around 10,000 of their Canadian unionized workers early on Thursday, starting an unprecedented simultaneous work stoppage that will grind almost all railway freight movement in the country to...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

East Palestine Residents Seek More Time, Information Before $600M Settlement Deadline

Some East Palestine, Ohio, residents want more time and more information before they have to decide by a deadline this week whether to accept their share of a $600 million class-action settlement with Norfolk Southern over last year’s disastrou...

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Collapsed Rail Bridge Gets Controlled Demolition After Severe Flooding

NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. (AP) — Half of a collapsed rail bridge connecting South Dakota and Iowa was blasted in a controlled demolition, part of the process to remove the bridge months after it fell into the river, swollen from …

Posted: Aug 22, 2024

Two Killed in West Texas Plane Crash That Set Off a Fire

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — A small plane crashed in a West Texas neighborhood Tuesday, killing the pilot and a passenger and setting off a large fire on the ground that injured a woman, authorities said. Witnesses said the plane struggled …

Posted: Aug 22, 2024