What’s New: In Brief (June 15, 2007)

Vito Pisano, an agent with Allstate Insurance Company of Canada, spoke recently at Alexander MacKenzie High School as part of MADD Canadas Mind Controla multimedia show for the Youth Assembly Program being presented at high schools across the country.
The program is intended to show students the effects of impaired driving.
Allstate Insurance Company of Canada is extremely proud to bring the fight against impaired driving to the students at Alexander MacKenzie HS, Pisano said. The anecdotes [presented in the video] are real and they are tragic. I am confident that this video will serve as a strong reminder of the potential consequences the next time someone gets behind the wheel impaired.

The U.S. insurance industry is in the midst of a regulatory storm that is every bit as threatening to its financial strength as its meteorological counterparts, according to a report, Hurricane Season 2007: A Desk Reference for Insurance Investors, released this month by Fitch Ratings.
The report says the regulatory storm includes three interconnected aspectsjudicial, legislative and public relationseach one of which has an impact on the others.
Fitch says three factors are driving this storm: an ill-informed and unrealistic public, opportunism by politicians and the plaintiffs bar, and mistakes made by the insurers public relations departments in the handling of policyholders needs (in addition to some claims errors).