Property and Casualty News

Catastrophic losses are on the rise, but many insurance carriers remain unprepared. The good news: technology can help.

Halloween 2017 continued the year-over-year trend of delivering more tricks than treats for auto owners as a report for the days leading up to and after the holiday revealed an increase in auto claims, according to Mercury Insurance.

Insure.com commissioned a survey of nearly 1,000 parents of teen drivers asking if they enforce Graduated Driver Licensing laws, and if not, why, which laws they allow their teens to disregard, as well as how familiar they are with GDL limits. The Governors Highway Safety Association says GDL laws are key to keeping teen drivers safe. “Teenage drivers have the…

For years, the gulf between the tourist destination Panama City Beach and its eastern counterpart Panama City has steadily widened, the Hathaway Bridge the crossing point between two cities growing further apart. Dave Rickell, executive vice president of the chain known for staying open during natural disasters, is at the Panama City Beach location that day…

In September, the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration released an analysis that found significantly higher rainfall frequency values in parts of Texas, redefining the amount of rainfall it takes to qualify as a 100-year event.

Disaster-prone developing nations, including Bangladesh and Indonesia, are exposed to crippling losses when storms, floods or earthquakes strike because they suffer from a dangerous lack of insurance, industry experts said on Monday. Globally, assets worth about $163 billion are not insured against catastrophes, posing a “significant threat” to…

–USI Insurance Services, a world leader in insurance brokerage and risk management, today announced the acquisition of Philadelphia, Pa.- based Beneficial Insurance Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Beneficial Bancorp, Inc. Founded in 2005, the insurance brokerage provides commercial property and casualty, personal risk, and employee benefit…

Almost six years after Hurricane Sandy struck New Jersey, a group that advocates for flood survivors’ rights held its first convention, showing there is still much work to be done in the historic storm’s aftermath.

For the fifth year in a row, Michigan has held onto its title as the most expensive state for car insurance. While this is a slight decrease from last year, Michigan is still $874- or 64%- higher than the national average premium. This is a difference of $1,454 or breaks down that you’ll pay 158 percent more to insure the same vehicle in Michigan than in Vermont. “

When a natural disaster or federal emergency occurs in the United States, federal agencies, such as FEMA, provide relief and assistance to affected individuals and entities. FEMA provides financial assistance by, among other things, helping affected individuals repair their property. On Oct. 30, 2012, then- President Obama signed a Presidential Disaster…

While the human toll of Hurricane Michael is still being tallied, the environmental impact from the monster storm is expected to ripple across the the Panhandle, and the entire state might see fallout from the storm for years to come. “I think the impact from Hurricane Michael is still unknown at this point,” Kelly Richmond, a spokeswoman for Florida Fish and…

Would drone images of Stuart, Port St. Lucie or Vero Beach look like what’s left of Mexico Beach? Michael was the most powerful storm in recorded history to hit the Panhandle. That, wrote TCPalm columnist Larry Reisman, was bad news for the 145,000 homes in Michael’s path– three-fourths of all residences in the nine Panhandle counties hit hardest– which were built…

The $3 billion in federal relief money the city already received from the National Flood Insurance Program, FEMA individual assistance and loans from the Small Business Administration mostly went to wealthier neighborhoods, according to the report. There’s another $1.17 billion in housing relief coming from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban…

Classes will resume Monday at Florida State’s sprawling, 40,000- student campus in Tallahassee and several other area universities. In the Bay County communities of Panama City and Mexico Beach, where the strongest hurricane to hit the Panhandle since record keeping began slammed onto the coast four days earlier, search-and-rescue crews accompanied by…

While Florida’s disjointed property insurance system will take a multibillion dollar loss from Hurricane Michael damages, analysts say it should be able to pay claims without problems thanks to sufficient reserves and backups. Analysts estimate private insurers will pay $6 billion in claims for wind and storm surge damage.