Most industries are cyclical to some extent, and insurance is no exception. As an insurance buyer, it's important to know what factors determine the cost of coverage. But understanding the market cycle is only half of the pricing equation: since you can't control the market, it's equally important to know what you can do to ensure you are always securing the best price - whatever market conditions prevail.

As companies outsource more and more IT and data processing tasks it's important to consider data security and indemnification for losses resulting from service interruptions or data breaches.

The following table provides a timeline of effective dates for the primary healthcare reform provisions affecting employers.
 
Caution: PPACA is under constant review. Provisions could be adjusted, re-interpreted and even repealed in the future. This is a snapshot as of July, 2012.
 

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), aka Healthcare Reform, health insurance companies are required to spend a minimum of their premium dollars for health care. This percentage, called medical loss ratio (MLR), is 80% of premiums for groups under 100 employees or 85% for groups with 100 or more employees. If an insurer does not meet this standard, it is required to rebate the excess to employers by August 1, 2012. Employers need to become familiar with the MLR rebate rules and if receiving a rebate, know what needs to be done to be compliant with the law.

Important Changes To Citizens Property Insurance Policies!If you have a home in Florida that has an insured replacement value over $1M, it's important to know that your options for insurance in the Florida marketplace are now extremely limited. Consult with your advisor prior to making any changes to your current Florida policies. If you receive a notice that your policy is affected by this 01/01/13 change, contact your advisor as soon as possible.

The Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. By a 5-4 vote, the individual mandate requiring most Americans to maintain "minimum essential" health insurance coverage, 26 U.S.C. 5000A, is affirmed as an exercise of Congress's taxing power.

The period between Memorial Day and Labor Day has been dubbed by auto club AAA and Volvo as "The 100 Deadliest Days" for teen drivers.

In December of last year, the Michigan state legislature enacted major reform to the state’s workers’ compensation law. We’d covered a few highlights of the legislation in a recent post and would like to call out one provision in particular that may have a major effect on claims – the new rules for what constitutes a “degenerative” condition and a “disability”.

Treatment of ‘degenerative’ and ‘disability’ under the new Michigan workers compensation law

A difficulty exists for insurance companies to defend ANY pollution exclusion that exists on the general liability policy due to language ambiguity. It is fair to say that policyholders might incur legal costs to force an insurance carrier into submission. Right now, in our opinion, the courts will lean toward siding with the policyholder in the State of Indiana. It is a very interesting situation. We are also anticipating some changes to the ISO Pollution Exclusion Form as a reaction to this latest ruling.