The Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, Richard D. Westphal, issued the following news release on Sept. 15, 2021:. A Council Bluffs man, Andrew J. Fischer, age 55, was sentenced on September 10, 2021, by United States District Court Judge Stephanie M. Rose to five months in prison for False Statements in Connection with Federal Crop Insurance.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency released maps that enlarge flood zones, especially in southern Broward County, using new data on hurricanes, sea level, land elevation and storm damage.
–Natural disasters have Americans more than worried about just climate change. Some fear a natural disaster or emergency could financially devastate them. Especially as emergencies and natural continue to pile up.
ARLINGTON, VA, September 13, 2021 — U.S. commercial insurance prices increased again during the second quarter of 2021, according to…
The bull's eye is on us. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, September is the most common month for hurricanes to make landfall. “Fortunately, hurricanes are not surprise weather events,” says Daniel Marshall, vice president of marketing and business development with Scepter ®.
“And then I dove into the water and I tried to find him, but I couldn't find him,” Laura Caroluzzi said Friday, sobbing outside her Bridgeport home. In the Philadelphia area, five— including Caroluzzi's husband, Jack— were counted as storm-related deaths as of Friday, though that number could rise. Donald Bauer was on his way home to Perkiomenville, Montgomery County,…
BISMARCK- Near the end of August, Bailie Graner, a 29- year-old cattle rancher south of Mandan, North Dakota, sent a Snapchat to her parents, also central North Dakota ranchers- on a property a little more than an hour and a half's drive east in Kidder County. Her photo showed a green tractor tailed by a taller forage wagon in a wide open field. Bailie's parents, Robin and…
In Connecticut, about 32,400 flood policies were in effect as of July under the National Flood Insurance Program, with coverage underwritten by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and sold through some 60 insurance carriers. Last year, the nonprofit First Street Foundation estimated that more than triple that number of Connecticut properties were at…
Less than a week after Hurricane Ida battered the Gulf Coast, President Joe Biden walked the streets of a hardhit Louisiana neighborhood and told local residents,“ I know you're hurting, I know you're hurting.”. More formally, Biden met with state and local officials in LaPlace, a community between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that suffered major…
While large, national property/casualty insurers with leading market shares in both the residential and commercial property markets in Louisiana will…
DES PLAINES, Ill., Aug. 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The National Insurance Crime Bureau’s Hot Spots report shows Colorado auto thefts…
A proposal to protect coastal Miami-Dade from hurricanes by running a tall concrete wall though Biscayne Bay and waterfront neighborhoods is— unsurprisingly— dead. The county on Monday formally rejected the plan, part of an instantly controversial $4.6 billion proposal from the Army Corps of Engineers that also included elevating thousands of private…
Miami, FL—- 08/30/2021– Understanding Florida law and working with a car accident attorney in Florida can help you navigate the strenuous process of filing and processing a claim. Florida law states that fault is assigned within a system known as pure comparative negligence. Riders who are 21 years or older and have a minimum of $10,000 in medical insurance…
In the past two years, hurricanes have been brewing, strengthening and hitting the United States at a record pace, and Ida will likely go down as one of the nastiest of a dangerous bunch. When it hit Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds, Ida tied for fifth“ with a whole bunch of other notorious storms,” for highest wind speed when making landfall in…
Top on the list of gripes was FEMA, and its slowness in processing disaster-assistance applications. “FEMA needs to be faster and easier for folks to use,” said Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers. ” An application to FEMA for assistance after the 2019 Kincade fire was returned unapproved because firefighters didn't have standard lunch periods, Sonoma County Fire Chief…
Up to a dozen structures were completely destroyed, and about 25 more suffered major damage, Steuben County Director of Public Safety Tim Marshall told the county legislature Monday. Marshall said the statewide damage toll will need to reach $30 million for the county to be eligible for financial reimbursements from FEMA. “With the damage to the school, that…
Although Hurricane Henri was downgraded to a tropical storm and narrowly missed densely populated Long Island, New York, Kroll Bond Rating Agency notes the following as we approach the peak of hurricane season:. The Winds of Change The Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project team— one of the pioneers of hurricane forecasting— updated on August…
Hurricane Henri kept on course early Sunday to crash into a long stretch of northeastern coastline, as millions on New York’ s Long Island and in southern New England braced for flooding, toppled trees and extended power outages. With the center of the storm projected to pass just off the eastern tip of Long Island by midday, hurricane warnings extended from…
–AXA XL, the property& casualty and specialty risk division of AXA, expands regional underwriting capabilities with the addition of senior environmental underwriters– Lindsay Judd, Jay Kao, Angela Case and Igor Pavlo. AXA XL also announced the promotion of Jeffrey Anastasio to lead its Environmental Claims team in North America. He assumes the role previously…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with Florida agencies more than complicit, made a mistake in 2017 when they took the manatee off the list of endangered species. Vern Buchanan and Democrat Rep. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission statistics are numbing when it comes to manatee deaths.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18– Resources for the Future issued the following news release:. A new working paper by scholars at Resources for the Future and the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania analyzes one critical cause of this flood insurance demand gap: home equity. “The first thing we see is that flood insurance…
Mercury Insurance, a leading auto insurer in California and provider of auto insurance in 10 other states, has put together a list of the most affordable new EVs to help consumers save them money on insurance. “Electric vehicles are very attractive to consumers from styling to performance,” said Mercury Insurance Director of Product Management R&D Chong Gao.
Aug. 17— Despite historic wildfire risk, too many Marin residents are still failing to create defensible space around their homes by clearing away combustible materials, Marin County fire officials said. “To date for this fire season, we've done about 25,000 evaluations, and our compliance rate is between 30% and 50%,” which is below the state average, said Mark…
“The winners of the Best Cars for Teens awards all have active safety features that can help teens safely develop their driving skills while lowering the risk that they’ll be involved in a collision,” said Jamie Page Deaton, executive editor of U.S. News Best Cars. In the used car categories, Toyota won four of the five awards. To be named one of the Best New Cars for…
Tropical Storm Grace is moving northwest over the northeastern Caribbean Sea on a forecast track that will bring it into the Gulf of Mexico by Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. At 7 a.m., Grace was moving northwest at around 16 mph with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. U.S. Virgin IslandsPuerto Rico, including Vieques and CulebraDominican…
Aug. 12— Drought improved slightly in southwestern North Dakota over the past week but worsened dramatically in the eastern part of the state. Extreme and even a small area of exceptional drought now covers most of the Red River Valley, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, released Thursday. The weekly crop report from the National Agricultural…
The regularity of severe weather and fire events across the US last year led to the US natural hazard & fire…
Robert Menendez, D- New Jersey, issued the following news release on Aug. 6, 2021:. U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and John Kennedy today introduced an amendment that will tackle systemic problems with the National Flood Insurance Program, invest in cost saving disaster mitigation and prevention and ensure its affordability for middle-class homeowners.
Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part article penned by Samantha Swank, a Linguistics and Spanish major at UC Davis with a minor in Professional Writing, Politics and Communication. Beth Rose Middleton Manning, 41, a Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, instructs a class called “Keepers…
_ State Auto Financial Corp. on Thursday reported second-quarter earnings of $600,000. The Columbus, Ohio- based company said it had profit of 1 cent per share. State Auto Financial shares have nearly tripled since the beginning of the year.
Claudette: June 18-22, came ashore in Louisiana. Don't be fooled by the present lull in the tropical Atlantic: the months of August, September and October will bring more storms and hurricanes. On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration increased the expected tally of tropical activity in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of…
The Ho-Chunk Nation, which operates casinos, hotels, restaurants and other businesses across Wisconsin, is suing its insurers over denials of its business interruption insurance claims brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
–Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, today introduced the new Aon Executive Committee. The four solution lines include: Commercial Risk Solutions, Health Solutions, Reinsurance Solutions and Wealth Solutions. Global solution lines will play a critical role in understanding…
The storm, which likely had wind speeds of more than 60 mph, hit Redby and Red Lake particularly hard. The towns of Blackduck, Tenstrike and Pennington, along with parts of southeast Beltrami and Cass County also experienced the severe weather, National Weather Service Grand Forks meteorologist Carl Jones said. Georgia Downwind, who lives between Redby and Red…
JERSEY CITY, N.J., July 26, 2021 — Private property/casualty insurers in the United States saw their net income after taxes…
Stretching across two vast canvases next to the memorial in Surfside, the Cubist-inspired painting is a jagged expression of grief and horror. The artist, Roberto Marquez, has been working on it for weeks. “I want this to serve as a witness to what happened here,” the Dallas painter said, painting a line of dark blue near an arm stretched upward from the ruins.
In the town of Bowman, it also floods. Other streets that typically flood during heavy rains are Reesville Road, Dibble Street, Tupelo Street, Canal Street, Ann Street and Rail Street. Bowman Councilman Ike Carter says flooding has been a problem in Bowman for decades, but has gotten worse over recent years.
A judge in Los Angeles ruled that Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has the right to force the California FAIR Plan— the so-called “insurer of last resort”— to offer more expansive coverage that resembles typical homeowners' policies. The decision by Judge Mary Stroble in Los Angeles Superior Court comes as another difficult wildfire season grips the state.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 20, 2021/ PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/– Americans will spend more preparing for natural disasters in 2021 than they did in 2020, and the reason is simple: COVID-19 showed just how scary life can be when you don’t have enough supplies and planning. “Even during the pandemic, we saw how Americans were changing their spending and saving…
Jul. 19— Brian Schneider has farmed and ranched north of Steele all his adult life, and he's seen some dry years. None in his memory has been as bad as 2021.. “This one is tougher,” he said.
AmGeneral is currently 51%- owned by AmBank Group and 49%- owned by Insurance Australia Group. Subject to receiving appropriate regulatory approvals, Liberty Insurance Berhad will acquire 100% shares of AmGeneral, and AmBank Group’s share of the sale proceeds will be in the form of cash and consideration shares, which will result in AmBank Group holding a 30%…
JACKSON, Miss.- Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney is encouraging Mississippians to take stock of their possessions and document those items using a new cellphone app. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners launched the new Home Inventory App earlier this year. The NAIC Home Inventory App can be accessed from the App Store and Google Play.
ARLINGTON, VA, July 13, 2021 — Global life and property and casualty insurers want to improve the efficiency and auditability…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says she will lead an effort by top U.S. regulators to assess the potential risk that climate change poses to America’s financial system, part of a wide-ranging initiative launched by the Biden administration.
It's a refrain being heard increasingly this summer from Silicon Valley to the Sierra, Southern California to Shasta County. California is on edge. In 2020, a record 4.3 million acres burned statewide— 1 out of every 24 acres in California. Those fires, some of which began during freak dry lightning storms in August, killed 33 people, destroyed more than 10,000…
Even though he has a good driver discount, the 53- year-old Detroit resident admits to having a poor credit history, and credit history is typically a big factor in auto insurance rates in Michigan, especially high-cost urban areas like Detroit. His new company, a small carrier known as CURE Auto Insurance or Citizens United Reciprocal Exchange, entered…
Local and federal government agencies are making their way around metro Detroit to as many homes affected by recent flooding as possible, talking to homeowners and recording data. Several assessment teams made up of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michigan State Police-Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division, the U.S. Small Business…
Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that condominiums in Florida are“ kind of a dime a dozen, particularly in southern Florida,” but he would not commit to any state action to address concerns about the aging buildings, suggesting that Champlain Towers South“ had problems from the start.”. Speaking after a briefing on Tropical Storm Elsa at the state Emergency Operations…
On the forecast track, Elsa will move over Georgia Wednesday evening, over South Carolina early Thursday, over North Carolina later on Thursday, and move near or over the mid- Atlantic coast on Friday. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Pender, New Hanover, and Brunswick County and the coastal marine waters from Surf City to Little River Inlet.
Roy Cooper and state emergency management officials are monitoring the forecast track and potential impacts from Tropical Storm Elsa and advising residents in eastern and central North Carolina to be prepared for significant rains and possible flooding, according to a press release from the governor's office. “Residents and visitors to North Carolina…
WASHINGTON, July 3– The American Property Casualty Insurance Association issued the following news release on July 2, 2021:. The American Property Casualty Insurance Association today announced its Principles of Good Insurance Regulation, which were adopted by its Board of Directors this week. “APCIA is committed to fostering a state-based insurance…
Jun. 29— As the ravages of climate change are making new headlines in the record breaking heat wave in the Northwest, California continues to grapple with our own climate-fueled disaster: wildfires and how to prevent them. Last year, acknowledging a documented need for more prescribed burns, California fire agencies and the U.S. Forest Service agreed on a plan to…
–Morgan& Morgan and Saltz, Mongeluzzi& Bendesky are investigating and exploring potential legal action regarding last week’s collapse of a highrise condo building in Surfside, Florida. Officials said 55 of the 136 apartments in Champlain Towers South Condos on Collins Avenue collapsed early Thursday morning. The firms have also litigated the FIU bridge…
Red Cross: A customer service center at Ranch View Elementary School, 1651 Ranchview Drive, is open every night until 8 p.m. to provide information and cleaning kits. Good Shepherd Church: The 1310 Shepherd Drive church in Naperville is taking information from those in need of assistance or those interested in volunteering to help at…
–American travelers are flocking to the Caribbean like never before due to ongoing border closures. Caribbean countries comprise 8 of the top 10 summer travel destinations, according to travel insurance comparison site, Squaremouth.com. Turks and Caicos is the fastest-growing Caribbean destination, with a 2000% increase in travelers since 2019 US…
The sharp policy growth, just as hurricane season gets underway, increases the risk that Citizens’ $6.4 billion surplus won’ t be able to cover all claims if a catastrophe strikes South Florida or other populated areas of the state. “The market is upside down,” said Ryan Papy, president of the Palmetto- based agency Keyes Insurance.“ We are writing hundreds of Citizens…
Vanessa Bryant, her children and relatives of other victims filed a settlement agreement notice Tuesday with a federal judge in Los Angeles but terms of the confidential deal weren’t disclosed.
A Deltona resident will receive $250,000 from settling a lawsuit with the city, nearly three years after raw sewage flooded the house in District 4. The City Commission unanimously approved the settlement agreement Monday night, about a business week after a judge filed an order directing the city to move forward with the agreement or face being held in…
Jun. 21— Kimberly Weigand said she was visiting a neighbor at the Forest Oaks Mobile Home Park in Liberty Township when shortly before 1 a.m. Monday they heard high winds and a crash. Affected communities in Northwest Indiana included Cedar Lake, Chesterton, Crown Point, Dyer, Gary, Griffith, Hammond, Hobart, LaPorte, Merrillville, Michigan City, Munster, Portage, St….
“Climate change and sprawl in the wildland urban interface are driving up both the economic and human cost of wildfires in California,” the authors explain. California already imposes strict growth limits, which lessen the amount of developable land. The result is California has the highest housing prices in the nation and faces vast shortages and a growing…
