Insurance Blog

Data breaches continue to occur within all types of organizations, some more than others, according to a just-released report from Verizon Business and the U.S. Secret Service.
The 2010 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report found that financial services, hospitality and retail still comprise the “big three” of industries affected (33 percent, 23 percent and 15 percent respectively) by data breaches.
A growing percentage of cases and an astounding 94 percent of all compromised records in 2009 were attributable to financial services, the report revealed.
For companies trying to manage this risk, the good news is that the overall number of data breaches declined in 2009.
According to the report, some 143 million records were compromised in breaches investigated in 2009, a 50 percent drop from over 360 million compromised records in 2008.
As was the case in the previous year, most of the losses in 2009 came from only a few breaches. The average number […]

Read the rest of this great post here

A Los Angeles Times blog post reports that marijuana lollipops were for sale on the Lakers parade route yesterday.
Apparently a food truck, Weed World Candies.com, was handing out the lollipops for free to customers that had a prescription card allowing them to purchase marijuana.
In addition to the orange and blue marijuana lollipops, the truck carried a variety of marijuana brands, according to the LA Times.
California became the first state to approve medical marijuana in 1996 and this November voters will decide whether to legalize marijuana even without a medical prescription. The liberalization of state marijuana laws is an issue that insurers are monitoring.
A BestWeek article by Meg Green via insurancenewsnet.com reports that to-date 14 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, while another 10 states have medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot this year and insurers are playing a key role in this emerging market. BestWeek says:
Billions of dollars are […]

Read the rest of this great post here

–>

A Los Angeles Times blog post reports that marijuana lollipops were for sale on the Lakers parade route yesterday.
Apparently a food truck, Weed World Candies.com, was handing out the lollipops for free to customers that had a prescription card allowing them to purchase marijuana.
In addition to the orange and blue marijuana lollipops, the truck carried a variety of marijuana brands, according to the LA Times.
California became the first state to approve medical marijuana in 1996 and this November voters will decide whether to legalize marijuana even without a medical prescription. The liberalization of state marijuana laws is an issue that insurers are monitoring.
A BestWeek article by Meg Green via insurancenewsnet.com reports that to-date 14 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, while another 10 states have medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot this year and insurers are playing a key role in this emerging market. BestWeek says:
Billions of dollars are […]

Read the rest of this great post here

Given the record flooding seen in parts of the United States this spring, it may be hard to imagine water scarcity being an issue right now for the business community. However, according to a new report from Lloyd’s and the WWF, global water shortages are an increasing threat to business and risk managers must act now to address this risk.
The report observes that as well as being our most important human resource, water is critical for many businesses because all goods require water in their production. But there is a finite amount of freshwater on our planet – only 3 percent of the total water in the world is freshwater and less than 1 percent is readily usable by humans. It warns that economic growth, population shifts and climate change will contribute to severe shortage and degradation of global water supplies and ecosystems over the next 30 years.
Lloyd’s CEO Richard Ward […]

Read the rest of this great post here

–>

Late last week the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recommended homeowners remove all possible problem Chinese drywall from their homes because of health and safety concerns related to emissions of hydrogen sulfide from the material. They also released new information showing that the top 10 reactive sulfur-emitting drywall samples were all produced in China. Certain Chinese samples had emission rates of hydrogen sulfide 100 times greater than non-Chinese drywall samples, the agencies said. A full text of the CPSC and HUD interim remediation guidance is available here. An April 3 Wall Street Journal article notes that the announcement could set the stage for Congress to compensate homeowners who face the expense of gutting their homes and replacing the drywall. However, Florida Senator Bill Nelson was quoted in the article saying: “Now the question is: who pays for it? The way I […]

Read the rest of this great post here

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday announced that it will be studying the impact of bisphenol-A on the environment and adding it to its list of chemicals of concern. BPA is a chemical used in a variety of consumer and industrial products. Some food and drink packaging, such as water and infant bottles, contains BPA. In January the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) said it had some concerns about the potential human health impacts of BPA and it would study the potential effects and ways to reduce exposure to BPA in food packaging. Now the EPA says releases of BPA to the environment exceed one million pounds per year. Its study of the environmental impacts of BPA includes:

• Adding BPA to the chemical concern list on the basis of potential environmental effects
• Requiring information on concentrations of BPA in surface water, ground water, and drinking water to determine if […]

Read the rest of this great post here

In the space of just two days two state supreme courts have issued rulings that signal an ongoing trend by the plaintiffs’ bar to erode damage caps. Yesterday the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that state caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases cannot be applied retroactively. A 2005 state law had capped noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases at $350,000. The decision came just a day after the Georgia Supreme Court, in a unanimous 7-0 ruling, found a state law limiting damages awarded for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases to be unconstitutional. The St Louis Business Journal reports that the Missouri court stopped short of declaring the caps themselves unconstitutional but mentioned the Georgia action in a footnote in the Missouri ruling. For more on the Georgia ruling check out the Fulton County Daily Report via law.com. The rulings follow last month’s […]

Read the rest of this great post here

A New Orleans federal courtroom will begin hearing an early test case in the Chinese-manufactured drywall products liability litigation today. In the case – Hernandez v. Knauf Gips KG – a New Orleans family contends that Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. Ltd. produced drywall in their home that was “unsafe, defective and inherently dangerous.” The test trial will be heard by U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon and its focus will be limited to property damage only. The Bradenton Herald notes that the case is among several hundred Chinese drywall lawsuits that have been consolidated into a single proceeding before a federal judge. It says the trial is likely to provide guidance on remediation that will make it easier to resolve future cases. As of February 17, 2010, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) had received 2,941 incident reports related to drywall from 37 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Ricko. […]

Read the rest of this great post here

The Singapore navy has warned that a terrorist group may be planning attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, according to CNN and Reuters reports. They cite an advisory issued by the Singapore Navy Information Fusion Centre (IFC) recommending that ships should “strengthen their on-board security measures and adopt community reporting to increase awareness and strengthen the safety of all seafarers.” They also note that the terrorists’ intent is probably to achieve widespread publicity and showcase that it remains a viable group. The advisory did not name a particular terrorist group, according to the reports. The maritime terrorist threat is a rising concern for ship owners and their insurers. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2010 report recently warned that a major terrorist attack that closed a port for weeks would have severe economic consequences on world trade because it would […]

Read the rest of this great post here

Data breaches across a range of industries continue to compromise companies’ cyber defense systems and data and the personal information of their customers. This week’s headline news that more than 75,000 computer systems at nearly 2,500 companies and government agencies around the world have been hacked over the last 18 months is a reminder of this growing exposure. Perhaps even more concerning, in a February 18 Wall Street Journal article security firm NetWitness says that the hacking operation is still running and it isn’t yet clear to what extent it has been contained. The attack comes just a month after reports that the computer networks at Google and around 30 other U.S. corporations had been compromised. Latest reports suggest those attacks have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China. Javelin Research & Strategy’s recently released 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report noted that personal identification most likely to […]

Read the rest of this great post here