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California Workers’ Comp Written Premium in 2022 Was Near Pre-Pandemic Level

Article 0 Comments Written premium in 2022 was 14% higher than 2021 and almost at the pre-pandemic level – an increase was driven by higher employee wage levels and the economic Recovery, according to a new report out on Wednesday from the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau. The WCIRB in its Quarterly Experience Report found written premium through the second quarter of 2023 of $8.5 billion was 4.1% higher than the same period in 2022. The average charged rate for the first six months of 2023 continued to decrease, putting 3% lower than 2022 and the lowest in decades. In its Sept. 1, 2023 pure premium rate filing, the WCIRB proposed an average 0.3% increase in advisory pure premium rates. The insurance commissioner approved an average 2.6% decrease in advisory pure premium rates. After five consecutive increases, the projected loss ratio, including the cost of COVID-19 claims, dropped 3 points in accident year 2022, according to the report. Topics California Workers’ Compensation COVID-19 Was this article valuable? Thank you! Please tell us what we can do to improve this article. Submit No Thanks Thank you! % of people found this article valuable. Please tell us what you liked about it....

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Big Returns from the ‘Magnificent 7’ Complicate Year-End Tax Planning

What You Need to Know Though markets have performed better this year than last, excess returns have been concentrated among some big names. Portfolio managers who incorporate tax mitigation into the investment process have had to strike a balance. Managers and advisors are hearing more questions about tracking error and other client concerns. There is no question that the market conditions enjoyed by investors so far in 2023 have been far superior to those in 2022, even with lingering volatility and big questions still being asked about high inflation and rising interest rates. The reprieve has been welcomed by investors and financial advisors, says Jeremy Milleson, director of investment strategy at Parametric Portfolio Associates, but that doesn’t mean this year has been without its challenges. Among these, Milleson says, has been the concentrated outperformance among a handful of big-name companies, especially earlier in the year. As Milleson recently told ThinkAdvisor, positive performance is always welcome in a portfolio, but one must take care to understand where the performance is coming from and what it looks like at a granular, stock-by-stock level — especially if one sees tax mitigation as an important goal in the investment management process. Milleson says portfolio...

Verisk’s ISO Businessowners Program Adds Nearly 160 New Classifications to Help Insurers Keep Pace with Evolving Risks 0

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Verisk’s ISO Businessowners Program Adds Nearly 160 New Classifications to Help Insurers Keep Pace with Evolving Risks

Jersey City, NJ (Sept. 27, 2023) – To help insurers keep pace with the changing nature of today’s business exposures, as well as increase profitability and expand into new markets, Verisk, a leading global data analytics and technology provider, has announced the launch of its latest update to the ISO Businessowners (BOP) program. With more than 300,000 new small businesses created annually over four of the past five years,[1] this update is essential to the industry and marks one of the most significant enhancements to the ISO BOP program. The enhanced BOP program includes: Nearly 160 new classifications and updated 2022 NAICS codes, providing insurers with a more comprehensive and up-to-date classification system New rules and advisory prospective loss costs for hired and non-owned autos and drones The introduction of classifications that complement Micro-BOP and ransomware coverage exclusions Insurers are encouraged to take advantage of the enhanced classifications offered by Verisk’s Businessowners program, designed to help them reduce premium leakage, and more accurately classify and price the risks of today and tomorrow. “The insurance world is constantly changing, and we’re uniquely positioned to lead the industry through that change,” said Neil Spector, president of Underwriting Solutions at Verisk. “That’s why...

20 Richest Women in the U.S.: Forbes, 2023 0

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20 Richest Women in the U.S.: Forbes, 2023

Start Slideshow On Tuesday, Forbes released its flagship Forbes 400 list of America’s wealthiest people, which includes the richest women in the U.S.  When possible, researchers met with listees in person or spoke with them virtually or by phone, and interviewed their employees, handlers, asset managers and financial advisors, rivals, peers and attorneys. They also pored over Securities and Exchange Commission documents, court filings, probate records and news articles. They took into account all types of assets, and factored in debt and charitable giving.  To see how philanthropic each Forbes 400 member has been, Forbes dug into their known charitable giving and assigned each a philanthropy score from 1 to 5. Two-thirds of the billionaires on The Forbes 400 scored a 1 or 2, meaning they have given less than 5% of their fortune to charity.  See the gallery for the 20 richest women in the U.S., with their net worths as of Sept. 8, according to Forbes. Start Slideshow

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Court Tosses $223.8M Verdict Against J&J in Talc Cancer Case

Article 1 Comment A New Jersey appeals court on Oct. 3 threw out a $223.8 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson that a jury had awarded to four plaintiffs who claimed they developed cancer from being exposed to asbestos in the company’s talc powder products. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division found that a lower court judge should not have allowed some of the scientific expert testimony the plaintiffs presented to jurors at trial. J&J Worldwide Vice President of Litigation Erik Haas said in a statement that the decision “resoundingly rejects … the ‘junk science’ advanced by purported ‘experts’ paid by the mass tort asbestos bar.” The company again said that its talc products are safe and do not contain asbestos. A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The jury in the case had ordered the company to pay $37.2 million in compensatory damages and $750 million in punitive damages, though that amount was automatically reduced to $186.5 million under state law. In reversing the verdict and ordering a new trial, a three-judge panel of the appeals court found that the trial court failed to fulfill its “gatekeeping role” of assessing...

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Annuities in Play as Colorado Regulates Life Insurance Data, Attorneys Predict

Two insurance regulatory law specialists say the effort that created the new Colorado life insurance technology unfair discrimination regulation will likely expand to affect annuities. The Colorado regulation will also do more to affect how insurers operate than other state efforts to address concerns about new forms of decision-support technology, the lawyers predicted. Paige Waters, a partner at Locke Lord, and Stephanie O’Neill Macro, an attorney of counsel with the firm, talked about the new regulation of external consumer data and information sources, or ECDIS, in an email interview. What it Means: Colorado’s requirements could have a big effect on how financial services regulators approach artificial intelligence, machine learning, traditional analytical systems and any new forms of technology. The Regulation: The new rules require insurers to set up a governance system for preventing race-based discrimination involving ECDIS. Regulators defined ECDIS to include “credit scores, social media habits, locations, purchasing habits, home ownership, educational attainment, licensures, civil judgments, court records, occupation that does not have a direct relationship to mortality, morbidity or longevity risk, consumer-generated internet of things data, and any insurance risk scores derived by the insurer or third-party from the above listed or similar data and/or information source.” What’s...

Gartner Places Generative AI on the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the 2023 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 0

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Gartner Places Generative AI on the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the 2023 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies

Emergent AI Will Have a Profound Impact on Business and Society Stamford, CT (Aug. 5, 2023) – Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is positioned on the Peak of Inflated Expectations on the Gartner, Inc. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2023, projected to reach transformational benefit within two to five years. Generative AI is encompassed within the broader theme of emergent AI, a key trend on this Hype Cycle that is creating new opportunities for innovation. “The popularity of many new AI techniques will have a profound impact on business and society,” said Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “The massive pretraining and scale of AI foundation models, viral adoption of conversational agents and the proliferation of generative AI applications are heralding a new wave of workforce productivity and machine creativity.” The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is unique among Gartner Hype Cycles because it distills key insights from more than 2,000 technologies and applied frameworks that Gartner profiles each year into a succinct set of “must-know” emerging technologies. These technologies have potential to deliver transformational benefits over the next two to 10 years (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2023 Source: Gartner (August 2023) “While all...

Accenture Invests in Writer to Accelerate Enterprise Use of Generative AI 0

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Accenture Invests in Writer to Accelerate Enterprise Use of Generative AI

New York, NY (Sept. 18, 2023) – Accenture is pleased to announce it has made a strategic investment, through Accenture Ventures, in Writer, a platform using generative AI to help enterprises create and shape content in the ways people already work. Writer is designed to help organizations deploy AI-driven applications that can increase productivity and drive significant business impact across enterprise functions including support, operations, product, sales, HR, marketing, and more. Enterprises can integrate generative AI into their content creation and other workflows, as well as generate insights from their internal data, safely and securely. “Our continued investments in generative AI platforms will empower clients across all industries to transform how they create, personalize and distribute content at pace, but also safely, securely and with brand integrity,” said Baiju Shah, chief strategy officer of Accenture Song. “We’ve entered a new era of tech-powered creativity and believe Writer’s enterprise-ready platform is a strong addition to Accenture’s comprehensive set of generative AI capabilities, tools and expertise, helping our clients capitalize on a wide range of uses across marketing and sales.” At Accenture, marketing and communications professionals use Writer to generate written content, synthesize various content and align writing to voice and brand...

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FEMA Sets Up Free Legal Help for Florida Idalia Victims

Article 0 Comments The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that free legal assistance is now available to help Hurricane Idalia victims in Florida with insurance claims, government benefits and other matters. For people in 16 Florida counties hit by the Aug. 30 storm who are unable to afford an attorney, a hotline has been set up to connect them with free legal services, FEMA said in in a bulletin last week. The counties include Citrus, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Hernando, Jefferson, Lafayette, Levy, Madison, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Sarasota, Suwannee and Taylor. It’s known as the Disaster Legal Services program and it works with local attorneys. It is a partnership between the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, FEMA and The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division. More legal actions may be the last thing the Florida insurance industry wants to see, after years of being battered by what carriers have called excessive claims litigation. But claims lawsuits from Idalia are expected to be fewer than some previous storms, because the affected area is sparsely populated and legislative reforms enacted late last year have disincentivized some litigation. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation reported that as of Sept. 28, some 22,087 property...

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Dimensional Adds 2 ETFs, More Expansion Planned

Dimensional Fund Advisors is expanding its exchange-traded fund offerings with seven new ETFs, including this week’s listings of its Ultrashort Fixed Income ETF (NYSE Arca: DUSB) and World Equity ETF (NYSE Arca: DFAW). The new funds join the recently launched US Core Equity 1 ETF and upcoming launches of three global fixed income ETFs and a U.S. Large Cap Vector ETF. Dimensional expects its ETF suite to total 38 funds covering global equities, fixed income and real estate by year end. The firm manages about $100 billion in ETF assets and said it has seen meaningful adoption of its ETF lineup. The company, which also offers mutual funds and separately managed accounts, oversaw $634 billion for investors worldwide as of June 30. “We continue to evolve our investment offering to meet demand from financial professionals and add value,” Co-CEO and Chief Investment Officer Gerard O’Reilly said in a release. “These ETFs are another set of tools in Dimensional’s growing lineup, which we expect will meet diverse investor needs across asset classes and geographies.”