Health care reform or insurer bailout?
With the long-fought battle over health care reform apparently nearing a Christmas Eve signing, it’s questionable how much real reform is actually left in the bill. It’s been so watered down by...
View ArticleMarket cheers `reform’ for health insurers
Following up on yesterday’s post about the watered-down health care reform bill, I compiled the chart above. Do these companies appear to be worried about reform? Hardly. Under the latest Senate...
View Article`Grease pencil’ Geithner crosses line for Goldman
Recently released emails show that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told bailed out insurer AIG to withhold details of payments made to trading partners, including Geithner’s former employer, Bloomberg...
View ArticleSome sympathy for Allen Stanford
Only an insurance company could make you feel sorry for an accused con man like R. Allen Stanford. The man who allegedly bilked investors of some $7 billion sits in prison awaiting trial next year...
View ArticleState Farm: ensuring rate rationale remains hidden
State Farm really doesn’t want us to know how it determines it rates, even though it seems to constantly need to raise them. Last month, State Farm filed a request to jack up rates another 4.5 percent...
View ArticleHell hath no fury like an insured scorned
After today’s column on State Farm’s rate hikes, Layla Fanucci sent me this song she wrote about Allstate. It’s an impressive four-minute spleen-venting set to a lilting melody. Fanucci’s melodious...
View ArticleDrilling ban’s bite felt far from the coast
Harvey Cooper is now semi-retired, but not by choice. He blames that decision on Kenneth Feinberg, the government “spill czar” who’s in charge of claims related to the BP oil spill. AP Cooper owns...
View ArticleFormer AIG exec sues the government over bailout
What would the global economic crisis be without the little laughs along the way? Maurice "Hank" Greenberg is doing his part to keep us all chuckling.
View ArticleSupreme Court decision ensures your health insurance premiums will go up
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the individual insurance mandate for President Obama’s health care law, which clears the way for the next — and most expensive — round of reforms that will be enacted...
View ArticleWind pool woes reveal the dangers of concentrated risk
By allowing private insurers to cherry-pick their markets, lawmakers have created a narrow risk pool that concentrates losses while private insurers continue to make money from their carefully chosen...
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