News

The outlook for the property and casualty industry in the United States for this year is generally stable, although the commercial lines segment has retained a negative outlook, says a new special report from rating agency A.M. Best. Last year…

 Insurance professionals need to bear in mind catastrophe models are imperfect, and should account for factors such as a concentration of exposures, location of critical suppliers and the time since the last catastrophe occurred in an area, brokerage firm Lockton…

Eastern Canada and the U.S. were getting heavy snow Friday morning, with AIR Worldwide warning of the possibility of collapsing roofs, power outages and frozen pipes in the U.S. northeast.  “The combination of heavy snow and intense winds means that…

Flooding in Australia and Indonesia causing losses of $6 billion was among the major catastrophes in the first month of the year, notes Aon Benfield’s latest recap report. Heavy rain causing major flooding throughout Indonesia killed at least 41 people,…

Corporate executives are more concerned about cyber threats than other major business risks, a new survey sponsored by insurance giant AIG suggests. More than 85% of the 258 executives surveyed said they were very or somewhat concerned about cyber risks…

The Allstate Corp. released Wednesday financial results for the three months and full year ending Dec. 31, recording net income of $2.3 billion on revenues of $33.3 billion in 2012. All figures are in U.S. dollars. Net income for the…

Staged collisions can be very lucrative for fraudsters managing treatment centres, an Insurance Bureau of Canada official says. IBC has evidence that some clinics whose owners or managers are involved in organized crime are paying co-conspirators $2,000 to $3,000 for…

In a first-time report, the National Insurance Crime Bureau in the United States has reported that from 2006 to 2012, there were more than 1,300 claims related to tailgate theft from pickup trucks. Between Jan. 1, 2006 and Sept. 30,…

Insurers should be heartened by some recent decisions around auto fraud, perhaps signalling a shift from what some may have been viewed as a pro-claimant bent at the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO), one lawyer says.  “There have been…

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re has posted a profit of €3.2 billion ($4.3 billion) for 2012, up from €0.71 billion in 2011, saying it is satisfied with its renewals going into this year. For 2012, the company posted an operating…

Half of employees who left or lost their jobs last year took confidential data with them when the departed, with 40% planning to use that data in their new job, findings from a new global survey suggest. The report from…

Intact Financial Corp., Canada’s largest provider of property and casualty insurance,  has reported a jump in its earnings for the last quarter of 2012, as well as for the entire year compared to 2011 results. The company reported Wednesday a…