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Delayed Passage of Farm Bill Stirs Concern for Texas Agriculture

Article 1 Comment WASHINGTON — Key federal legislation to support farmers and consumers could get delayed due to the looming government shutdown, causing uncertainty for agriculture and nutrition programs in Texas. The must-pass package of legislation known as the farm bill, which is reauthorized every five years, is critical to funding a wide range of programs that include providing crop insurance and loans to farmers and food access to low-income families. Traditionally a testament to bipartisanship in Congress, meeting the Sept. 30 deadline to pass the bill is seemingly impossible as lawmakers are preoccupied with averting a government shutdown. In lieu of passing a new version of the farm bill, Congress is expected to extend the deadline, keeping in place the current version of the law for as long as a few weeks to several months. But that temporary fix delays critical updates for the agriculture industry. “What the farm bill is trying to do is to provide a sense of security to our farmers in an increasingly uncertain space, with rising temperatures, more droughts,” said Chloe Kessock, spokesperson for Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, who serves on the House Agriculture Committee. “The farm bill is meant to kind of make...

Life and health insurers paid out a record $114 billion in 2022, helping to make life more affordable: CLHIA 0

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Life and health insurers paid out a record $114 billion in 2022, helping to make life more affordable: CLHIA

Toronto, ON (Sept. 26, 2023) – Canada’s life and health insurers paid out more than $312 million a day in benefits last year to help make life more affordable for Canadian families. Canadians received a record $114 billion in benefits from life and health insurance products last year – up 10 per cent from 2019. This included payments for health insurance claims, life insurance and insurance-based retirement products. Among the other findings in the 2023 edition of Canadian Life & Health Insurance Facts are that last year, life and health insurers: provided coverage for over 29 million people – or 74 per cent of Canadians, up nearly 2 million in the past decade paid a record $43.9 billion in claims for supplementary health, disability and accident coverage – up 8 per cent paid out $14.3 billion in prescription drug claims – up 8 per cent paid $650 million in mental health support claims – up 10 per cent and nearly double since 2019 employed over 170,000 Canadians – up more than 3,000 provided insurance products to over 100 million people worldwide The number of Canadians covered by health insurance surpassed 27 million for the first time. Driven by increased employment...

Manulife Partners with Leading Health Tech Provider to Deliver Next-Generation Health-Care Experience 0

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Manulife Partners with Leading Health Tech Provider to Deliver Next-Generation Health-Care Experience

Manulife’s data-driven insights, backed by League’s innovative CX platform, will help Group Benefits Members take control of their health and wellness Toronto, ON (Sept. 26, 2023) – Manulife is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with League, a leading health care technology provider that will provide members with a personalized and digital health care experience that is fully integrated with Manulife’s group benefits ecosystem. This announcement marks a significant milestone in Manulife’s commitment to providing innovative, data-driven experiences, and our promise to help customers live longer, healthier, better lives by taking preventive measures to improve health outcomes. “We are expanding our care-oriented digital health experiences for Group Benefits customers,” says Ashesh Desai, Head of Group Benefits, Manulife Canada. “This technology will help accelerate our journey to offer intuitive and personalized digital health care experiences that help our customers understand their health, focus on prevention, and access the care they need. Our partnership with League will make it easier for members to navigate their health journeys and in turn, help employers foster healthier workforces and manage costs associated with employee illness, such as absenteeism and lower productivity.” League is a leading Canadian-based health care consumer experience (CX) platform recognized across North...

Five Sigma and Socotra Forge Strategic Partnership to Bring Modern Technology into a Full Suite Solution 0

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Five Sigma and Socotra Forge Strategic Partnership to Bring Modern Technology into a Full Suite Solution

Empowering Insurers with a Modern, Integrated SaaS Technology Suite: Five Sigma and Socotra Join Forces to Redefine the Future of Insurance Rocky Hill, CT (Sept. 20, 2023) – Leading the charge in innovation and modernization, Five Sigma and Socotra are proud to announce their strategic partnership designed to revolutionize the insurance landscape. This collaboration will herald a new era of seamless experiences throughout the entire policy lifecycle. In a transformative move, Five Sigma, a trailblazer in the insurance sector, has joined forces with Socotra, a renowned core platform provider known for its modern, flexible SaaS insurance system. This partnership is set to bring forth a “Full Suite” platform solution that redefines policy management, billing, claims handling, and communication within the insurance ecosystem. By merging Five Sigma’s’ cutting-edge claims management software with Socotra’s flexible and innovative core policy and billing solutions, insurers can look forward to unparalleled efficiency, enhanced customer experiences, and an accelerated digital transformation journey. Key Highlights of the Partnership Five Sigma’s modern claim technology, integrated with Socotra’s policy solution, enables real-time data-driven decision-making across policy management and claims handling processes. The result is a seamless and intuitive interface for insurers, policyholders, and claims professionals, delivering modern experiences and...

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SEC Charges Firm With Inflating AUM on Form ADV

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Vista Financial Advisors LLC and the firm’s co-owner and chief compliance officer, Ruben Cedrick Williams, with inflating the firm’s assets under management on Form ADV. Why it matters: Firms cannot misrepresent their AUM to the SEC or to the public. The case: According to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Vista and Williams made material misrepresentations in Vista’s Forms ADV for 2022 and 2023. The firm falsely claimed in its 2022 Form ADV filing that Vista had $10 billion in regulatory assets under management, or RAUM. While Vista represented in its Form ADV filed on April 14, 2022, that it had $10 billion in RAUM, “it subsequently failed to provide the Commission with evidence to corroborate this statement,” the order states. Vista has also “ignored repeated requests from the Commission staff to substantiate, correct, and/or withdraw the statement,” the order says, adding that “to the extent that Vista had any RAUM, such assets did not remotely approach the $10 billion in RAUM represented in the Form ADV.” Rather than undertaking any corrective measures in response to the Commission’s inquiries, on April 5, 2023, Vista filed...

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FTC Sues Amazon.com for Breaking Antitrust Law and Harming Consumers

Article 0 Comments The U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a long awaited antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com on Tuesday, and asked the court to consider forcing the online retailer to sell assets as the government pressed on with its fight to rein in Big Tech’s domination of the internet. The FTC said that Amazon restricts retailers on its marketplace from discounting, which stifled competition, and forced sellers to use its ‘fulfillment service,’ a reference to its nationwide network of delivery vans and warehouses, which some critics say should be hived off from Amazon’s web business. The lawsuit had been expected after years of complaints that Amazon.com and other tech giants abused their dominance of search, social media and online retailing to become gate keepers on the most lucrative aspects of the internet. The lawsuit, which was joined by 17 state attorneys general, follows a four-year investigation and federal lawsuits filed against Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms’ Facebook. The FTC said that it was asking the court to issue a permanent injunction ordering Amazon.com to stop its unlawful conduct. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Seattle, where Amazon is based. “Left unchecked, Amazon will continue its illegal course of conduct...

A Beginner’s Guide to Cyber Insurance & Risk Management 0

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A Beginner’s Guide to Cyber Insurance & Risk Management

By Greg Boutin, CEO, Relay Platform — The cyber threat landscape is rapidly changing and presents an ever-growing challenge to mitigate risks with the right coverage. The complexity of the threat landscape continues to grow as new attack strategies are identified with alarming regularity.  In this guide, we will cover all the basics of cyber insurance and risk management to help agents and brokers better advise customers on which policies meet their requirements — taking them beyond just protecting their data and setting up systems that reduce or eliminate risks before they happen. What is a Cyber Insurance Policy? A cyber insurance policy is an important tool for any business. It provides financial protection from data breaches, cyber-attacks, privacy violations, and other cyber-related losses. The policy helps businesses identify potential risks and create a comprehensive plan to reduce liability and secure their data accordingly. While it may seem like an expensive investment  at first glance, rebuilding a company without a plan and without insurance coverage can be devastatingly costly. A cyber insurance policy can provide peace of mind that all potential risks are tracked and covered while allowing companies to stay one step ahead of any malicious actors on the internet. What is...

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Bill Could Limit Treasury Unit’s Ability to Probe Insurers

H.R. 5535 H.R. 5535 would restrict federal agencies’ ability to ask insurers for information without eliminating all data calls. The bill would require federal agencies that want data to start by seeing if they could get the information from public sources, state insurance regulators or other federal agencies, such as the IRS, that have an existing process for getting data from insurers. Once the federal agencies obtained the data, they would have to abide by any confidentiality rules governing the entities that originally collected it. If the Federal Insurance Office or federal bank regulators needed insurance company data that was not available from data vendors, state regulators or other federal agencies, they would have to put the requests for information through a formal Paperwork Reduction Act review process. The Paperwork Reduction Act requires many federal agencies to post draft information collection forms and give affected entities a chance to comment on the forms. H.R. 5535 was introduced by Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis. It has five Republican co-sponsors and no Democratic co-sponsors. The bill is under the jurisdiction of the House Financial Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee. The US Capitol building in Washington. (Image: Bloomberg)

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Report Examines 10-Year California Workers Comp Payment Trends

Article 0 Comments Average paid losses on California workers’ compensation lost-time claims fell immediately after legislative reforms of SB 863 took effect a decade ago, but then gradually increased up until the pandemic hit, according to a new study. The California Workers’ Compensation Institute shows the increase puts average paid losses on claims at all valuation points within 60 months of injury above their post-reform lows with only the most developed data on older claims – 72-month data on accident year 2016 claims still showing declines in loss payments in the wake of the sweeping 2012 reforms. Using data from CWCI’s Claims Monitoring Application on nearly 570,000 indemnity claims for injuries that occurred during the 10-year span ending in December 2022, the study tracks average paid losses at six, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 months post injury. It breaks out the results by accident year to identify growth trends. In addition to average total losses, the study notes the average medical and indemnity payments at each level of development and compares the loss payments for claims from five industry sectors and from different regions of the state. According to the CWCI study, average total paid losses within the...

Waabi and Uber Freight partner to build an industry-first solution for seamless autonomous truck deployment 0

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Waabi and Uber Freight partner to build an industry-first solution for seamless autonomous truck deployment

The two companies intend to deploy billions of miles of Waabi Driver capacity over the next ten years, with the first commercial route now live in Texas Toronto, ON (Sept. 21, 2023) – Waabi, the global leader in generative AI and simulation for autonomous driving, and Uber Freight are pleased to announce a strategic partnership to accelerate the safe deployment of AI-powered autonomous trucks at scale. The agreement pairs Waabi’s core technology—the Waabi Driver—with Uber Freight’s vast logistics platform, marketplace technology, and expertise in autonomous trucking operations to deliver a turnkey driver-as-a-service solution that will be the first of its kind. By providing carriers with the services and infrastructure to deploy, maintain and manage their autonomous assets seamlessly, the bundled solution can help increase asset utilization significantly as well as drive profitability for carriers of all sizes. Over the next ten years, the two companies also intend to deploy billions of miles of Waabi Driver capacity alongside carrier partners on the Uber Freight network, ensuring the technology will have a meaningful impact for shippers and carriers over the long term. To gather valuable insights for the joint solution, Waabi Driver trucks have been deployed on the Uber Freight network giving...