What’s New: In Brief (March 06, 2009)

Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), the province of British Columbia and police will deploy red-light cameras at 140 of the province’s most crash- and casualty-prone intersections.
The most recent study of B.C.’s decade-old camera program, conducted by ICBC in 2006, shows crashes involving death or injury declined 6.4% at sites with red-light cameras, and overall crashes at these intersections fell 6%, an ICBC release says.
Currently B.C.’s cameras rotate among 120 intersections. These cameras use film that must be manually unloaded and processed, delaying ticket mailing to the registered owners of photographed vehicles for three to five weeks.
The upgraded program will put digital cameras at 140 sites. Police will be able to target these sites individually and during periods of the day and week when crash data and other analysis show the risk is greatest.
Digital photos will be downloaded remotely and mailed much sooner.

The composite rate for U.S. commercial property and casualty insurance was -8% for February 2009, compared to -14% in February 2008, MarketScout reported.
General liability and business owners’ policies reflected the highest rate reductions at 9%. D&O liability experienced rate reductions of 4%, and the majority of other lines experienced rate reductions between 5 and 7%. But the composite reduction was 8% because of the large volume of GL and BOP business, a MarketScout release says.
“Four large insurance companies are drawing a line in the sand and demanding rate stabilization,” Richard Kerr, founder and CEO of MarketScout, said in the release.
“If it sticks, we will see a further flattening of reductions very soon.”