About Caroline McDonald

Caroline McDonald is a writer and former senior editor of the Risk Management Monitor and Risk Management magazine.
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Annual Report Card Finds Vermont Has the Best Insurance Regulatory System

Examining a matrix of variables affecting a state’s insurance regulations, the R Street Institute determined that Vermont has the best regulatory system for insurance and that vermontNorth Carolina has the worst, according to the Insurance Regulation Report Card.

The annual report grades each state across seven dimensions. The three fundamental questions the report seeks to answer are:

1. How free are consumers to choose the insurance products they want?

2. How free are insurers to provide the insurance products consumers want?

3. How effectively are states discharging their duties to monitor insurer solvency and foster competitive, private insurance markets?

“We believe states should regulate only those market activities where government is best-positioned to act; that they should do so competently and with measurable results; and that their activities should lay the minimum possible financial burden on policyholders, companies and, ultimately, taxpayers,” Senior Fellow R.J. Lehmann said in a statement.

According to the report:

The insurance market is both the largest and most significant portion of the financial services industry to be regulated almost entirely at the state level. While state banking and securities regulators largely have been preempted by federal law in recent decades, Congress reserved to the states the duty of overseeing the “business of insurance” as part of 1945’s McCarran-Ferguson Act. On balance, we believe states have done an effective job of encouraging competition and, at least since the broad adoption of risk-based capital requirements, of ensuring solvency. As a whole and in most individual states, U.S. personal lines markets are not overly concentrated. Insolvencies are relatively rare and, through the runoff process and guaranty fund protections enacted in nearly every state, generally quite manageable. However, there are certainly ways in which the thicket of state-by-state regulations leads to inefficiencies, as well as particular state policies that have the effect of discouraging capital formation, stifling competition and concentrating risk. Central among these are rate controls.

For the third straight year, the report found that Vermont had the best insurance regulatory environment in the United States, receiving the only A+ score. Other states receiving either an A or A- were Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Utah and Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, North Carolina had the worst score, receiving a failing grade for the third year in a row. States ranking a D include Alaska, Massachusetts, California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota and New York.

R Street found the most significant shift to be the continued expansion of North Carolina’s two property insurance residual market entities, even as Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp.—previously the nation’s largest residual market entity—has continued to shrink.

“Not coincidentally, when R Street issued its first regulation report card in 2012, Florida ranked dead last and North Carolina was somewhere in the middle. This year, North Carolina is dead last and Florida is somewhere in the middle,” Lehmann wrote.

Fed Program Initiates Life-Saving Training for Shootings, Terror Attacks

The length of time victims wounded in school shootings and terror attacks must wait for help from an EMT could be minutes or hours—during which time they could bleed to death.

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This has happened in a number of cases, including a shooting at an Orlando nightclub in June, when a woman bled to death while waiting for help to arrive.

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These incidents have prompted the Department of Homeland Security’s Stop the Bleed campaign, a nationwide initiative to empower individuals to act quickly and save lives in emergency situations. Bystanders are asked to take simple steps to keep an injured person alive until medical care is available.

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Security guards, custodians, teachers and administrators are being trained at schools and other places to administer first aid until help arrives.

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Stony Brook University Hospital’s trauma center is spearheading training for school districts and colleges across the country. According to the Associated Press:

At a recent training session, paramedics and doctors brought in fake body parts—blood spurting from the wounds—to show staffers of a Long Island school district how to tie tourniquets and pack open wounds with whatever they have.

“Seconds matter. It really can be minutes when you can lose your life,” said Dr. James Vosswinkel, the chief of trauma and emergency surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital, who led the training.

Doctors emphasized that in the critical seconds after an attack it’s important for teachers and other school staff to stay calm and begin assessing injuries. Teachers learned to apply tourniquets in case a student is shot in the arms or legs—using T-shirts or belts, if necessary—and to stick anything they can to pack wounds in the torso.

Stony Brook doctors have reached out to local schools to offer the training, but are looking to expand the program as part of a federal Department of Homeland Security initiative to other schools, colleges and police departments across the country.

“Nobody should die from preventable hemorrhage,” Vosswinkel said.

November Composite Rate -1%, Up From -2% in October

The November composite rate for insurers in the United States moved from minus 2% to minus 1% in November, with commercial insurance seeing the largest increases, barometeraccording to MarketScout.

“The most notable coverage classification with an ongoing consistent rate increase is commercial auto at plus 3%,” said MarketScout CEO Richard Kerr. “The commercial auto classification includes all types of commercial vehicles. Not surprisingly, the most notable industry classification with an ongoing consistent rate increase was transportation, also at plus 3%.”

The transportation classification includes trucking, hauling, buses, “and most anything with wheels,” he said. Railroads and aviation are not included in the transportation class.

“Underwriters have long struggled with commercial auto, many writing the coverage only to capture the related casualty lines such as workers compensation, general liability and excess. Many insurers consider commercial auto as a loss leader,” Kerr said.

By coverage classification, from October to November, property was down from minus 2% to minus 3%, business owners policies (BOPs) were up 1% compared to down 1%, auto was up 3% from up 2% and D&O was up 1% from flat.

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By premium size, small accounts (up to $25,000) were flat in November compared to down 1% in October. Medium accounts ($25,001 to $250,000) were down 1% in November compared to down 2% in October. Large accounts ($250,001 to $1,000) saw more aggressive pricing, with rates down more in November (minus 2%) compared to October (minus 1%). Jumbo accounts (over $1 million) remained stable at minus 2%.
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Insurers reversed their rate reductions for the contracting and service industries, moderating rate reductions from minus 2% in October to minus 1% in November. Manufacturing rates were flat in November compared to down 1% in October, MarketScout said.
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Recap of 2016 Weather Events

The 2016 hurricane season, which ends today, has been the deadliest since 2005 and the most active and costliest since 2012.

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In all there were 15 named storms and seven hurricanes, three of them major hurricanes.

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Hurricane Matthew, a Category 5, was responsible for more than 1,600 deaths and insured loss estimates of about $7 billion.

Other major storms that hit the United States in 2016 include Winter Storm Jonas, Louisiana flooding, hailstorms, tornadoes and hurricanes.

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For a recap of 2016 storms check out Interstate’s year-in-review infographic:
yearinreviewinfographic