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By John Poirier WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators took over two banks on Friday and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch. ADVERTISEMENT Two weeks after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp seized IndyMac Bancorp Inc (Other OTC:IDMC.PK - News), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California. First National had total assets of $3.4 billion and $3 billion in deposits while First Heritage had assets of...

Santa Rosa, NM (AHN) -- A suspected murder victim has been found to have committed suicide in an elaborate attempt to make his death look unintentional. Police who initially thought Thomas Hickman, 55, was murdered in New Mexico, after he was found duct taped and shot in the back of head. But now police say the Red Lobster executive re-enacted an episode of CBS's show "CSI" in which a man tied helium balloons to the gun he used to kill himself with so that the gun would float away, leading crime scene investigators to believe a murder was committed. Authorities...

Gov. Rod Blagojevich used his amendatory veto power Monday to rewrite a House bill that would require medical costs associated with autism to be covered by insurance. About 26,000 children in Illinois have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and families often cover treatment costs using personal funds, according to a governor's office news release. Blagojevich and other supporters instead want insurance companies to cover up to $36,000 a year for diagnosis and treatment of autism, including speech therapy and psychiatric services, as well as doctor visits until a patient reaches 21. “Since most insurance companies do not cover the...

...Stung by growing defaults, lenders are offering borrowers fewer ways to avoid purchasing private mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance, required for buyers who are unable to make a full down payment or who have insufficient credit histories, reimburses lenders in the event of a borrower default. But over the past few months, mortgage insurers have been declaring more and more of the U.S. a "declining market," raising the requirements and making such insurance harder to obtain. ...For a time, it seemed mortgage insurers were going the way of the dinosaur. During the housing boom, when lending standards loosened drastically, borrowers often...

Dying of cancer, Thomas Amschwand did everything he was told to make sure his wife would collect on the life insurance policy he had through his employer. "He was obsessed with dotting every `i' and crossing every `t'," Melissa Amschwand-Bellinger recalled about her husband, who died in 2001 at age 30. But Spherion Corp., the temporary staffing company where Amschwand worked, told Amschwand-Bellinger she would not receive any of the $426,000 in benefits she believed she was due. When she went to court, Spherion succeeded in getting her lawsuit thrown out. The Supreme Court on June 27 refused to review...

The Sunshine State has about 3.8 million people without insurance, or about 21% of the population, the fourth-highest rate in the country. The "Cover Florida" plan hopes to improve those numbers by offering access to more affordable policies. As even Barack Obama says, the main reason people are uninsured isn't because they don't want to be; it's because coverage is too expensive. But the Florida reform, which both houses of the legislature approved unanimously, renounces Mr. Obama's favored remedy: It nudges the government out of the health-care marketplace. Insurance companies will be permitted to sell stripped-down, no-frills policies exempted from...

Scientists say the jury is still out on whether rising sea temperatures will cause more hurricanes to hit U.S. coastlines. Yet some insurance companies are boosting premiums based on assumptions that they will... Costs for homeowner insurance along the East and Gulf coasts have risen 20% to 100% since 2004, says the Insurance Information Institute... In the three years through 2006, says the institute, property and casualty insurers registered record profits, topping out at $65.8 billion in 2006... Helping to drive these developments is a little-known tool of the insurance world: Computerized catastrophe modeling. Crafted by several independent firms and...

I am requesting if anyone out there in FReeperdom has information / testimonials (positive or neagative) on the ethics, business practices, professional conduct, overall behavior of its representatives. Need to advise a WWII Generation member on whether or not these folks can be trusted and be able to back it up with facts.

In a sweeping proposal, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. has asked Congress to allow private companies to begin selling flood coverage in hopes of getting more people to buy it, reducing the burden on the federal treasury in times of disaster and avoiding disputes over the causes of hurricane damage. Although the proposal comes as floods are destroying towns across the Midwest where only about 17 percent of homes have flood insurance, the program has its roots in Hurricane Katrina's watery devastation and the ubiquitous flood versus wind disputes along the Gulf Coast. Nationwide, which does not do business in Louisiana,...

My lad is in America waiting for a visa to live there and marry a lovely American lass. He was taken ill and went to hospital where an appendectomy was performed. The bill is $28,000 minimum. We think he has medical cover but we don't know the datils ...is ths figure about right? Anyone out there with any advice?

For the second time in three years, the board at American International Group, the giant insurance company, has [replaced] its chief executive. Martin J. Sullivan, who was named chief executive in 2005 after an accounting scandal claimed his predecessor, was removed by the board at a closed-door meeting on Sunday.... The change at the top comes as pressure has mounted on the company to respond to a steady stream of bad news, including record losses, that has pounded down the stock price more than 40 percent since December. AIG’s shares closed at $34.18 on Friday, down from $57.05 in December....

As hurricane season begins, Democrats in Congress want to nationalize a chunk of the insurance business that covers major storm-damage claims. The proposal -- backed by giant insurers Allstate Corp. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as well as Florida lawmakers -- focuses on "reinsurance," the policies bought by insurers themselves to protect against catastrophic losses. The proposal envisions a taxpayer-financed reinsurance program covering all 50 states, which would essentially backstop the giant insurers in case of disaster. The program could save homeowners roughly $500 apiece in annual premiums in Florida... But environmentalists and other critics ...say lower premiums...

As difficult as it undoubtedly will be for most readers to believe, DrRich still hears from skeptics who ridicule his theory that a Democratic victory this fall will be the best thing that could happen to the health insurance industry. For example, consider this from Anonymous in Montana: Democrats hate ALL corporations and want to eliminate profit as a concept. Democrats believe that the most evil companies in all the evil corporate world are the murderous health insurance outfits, because they make their filthy profits withholding healthcare from the sick. If the Democrats win this fall the health insurance industry...

[How to fix health care? When it comes to the current state of heath care services in the United States, there are no easy answers. However, most people I've spoken to — both within and without the industry — agree that the way we are providing health care services in America now just isn't working, and that something must be done. Both Democrat presidential candidates are touting a public/private system of universal health care; the Republican candidate favors tinkering with the current system. Other proposals include getting rid of all government involvement in the health care industry, full-on British/Canadian-style socialized...

MANY advocates of a universal healthcare system in the United States look to Canada for their model... Although the French system faces many challenges, the World Health Organization rated it the best in the world in 2001 because of its universal coverage, responsive healthcare providers, patient and provider freedoms, and the health and longevity of the country's population. The United States ranked 37. The French system is also not inexpensive. At $3,500 per capita it is one of the most costly in Europe, yet that is still far less than the $6,100 per person in the United States. [ ......

Everyone’s abuzz over Hillary Clinton saying she is staying in the race just in case Barack Obama gets assassinated. Or, something like that: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out. A very angry John Aravosis has the blow-by-blow of the story breaking and the various reactions and counter-reactions as they played out on television. Marc Ambinder notes that the part about Bill...

Gov. Charlie Crist traveled the length of his state on Wednesday to sign a bill aimed at providing low-cost health coverage to the uninsured by allowing the sale of stripped-down insurance policies. But the best part, as Mr. Crist, a Republican, explained at news conferences in Miami, Tampa and Tallahassee, is that the law “doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime.” His initiative, which both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature approved unanimously, enables insurers to create bare-bones policies that the governor hopes will sell for no more than $150 a month. The policies would be available to any Floridian 19 to 64...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The chances are good that your health insurance plan covers elective abortions since 46 percent of all health insurance plans in the United States do so. A leading researcher urges pro-life advocates to investigate their plans to find out whether they are unknowingly supporting abortion. During the Reagan administration, Dr. Robert Moffitt was the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He recently gave a speech at the Family Research Council warning that, because most health insurance plans are controlled by secular companies or government officials, many of them pay for abortions. The...

Remarkable news from Massachusetts, of all places. Car insurance premiums are going down. For three decades a Bay State regulator has set the price of car insurance, leading to an annual tussle between insurers and consumer groups over the size of the increase. This led to some of the highest insurance rates in the country. Because there was no price competition, some of the biggest insurers wouldn't do business in the state. During this exercise in central planning, the number of insurers dropped to 18 last year, from more than 70 three decades ago. But as of April 1, the...

Whirlpool Corp.'s Evansville, Ind., plant has suspended 39 workers for smoking while claiming on their health insurance they were nonsmokers.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration overreached last year when it limited states' ability to extend health coverage to moderate-income children, government auditors said in a letter released Friday. The auditors' opinion may not bode well for the administration as it battles multiple lawsuits challenging changes it made to the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The policies made it harder for states to extend government-sponsored health insurance to children whose family's income exceeds 250 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of three. Several states want to expand their programs to cover families above that income level. The...

State-backed Citizens Property Insurance is in jeopardy of not being able to pay all its claims if Florida's Hurricane Catastrophe Fund can't sell bonds, an insurance-industry advocacy group said Monday. The Florida Insurance Council's white paper said tightening credit markets have put a damper on the catastrophe fund's ability to sell enough bonds to pay the company's claims. If Citizens can't raise enough money, Florida property-insurance policyholders would have to deal with delays in having their claims paid -- or see them go unpaid, the group said. Citizens is the largest property insurer in Florida...

(IsraelNN.com) The Islamic group “Samuh al-Islam” has begun a campaign to find husbands for the widows of deceased terrorists, according to Omedia. The group describes the campaign as an effort to revive an ancient Islamic custom. The group’s religious leaders point out that Mohammed, who Muslims hail as a prophet, married the widow of a follower who died in battle, despite the fact that she was less attractive than his other wives. Terrorists’ widows pose a challenge to the social structure in many areas, especially Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, where several thousand men have been killed while fighting the IDF or...

Ever think about insurance? It’s not really a difficult idea, although the mathematics that goes with it — called “actuarial science” — can be hard going. But the basic idea is simple: you are making a bet with a bookie that some unfortunate thing will happen to you in some fixed length of time. Usually, the one hard thing about explaining insurance is that you’re doing exactly what Pete Rose said he never did: you’re betting against your own team. If the unfortunate thing happens, at least you win your bet, and you get some money — or at least...

Fear of Insurance Trouble Leads Many to Shun or Hide DNA Tests By AMY HARMON Victoria Grove wanted to find out if she was destined to develop the form of emphysema that ran in her family, but she did not want to ask her doctor for the DNA test that would tell her. She worried that she might not be able to get health insurance, or even a job, if a genetic predisposition showed up in her medical records, especially since treatment for the condition, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, could cost over $100,000 a year. Instead, Ms. Grove sought out a...

---snip--- The award came a day after the Los Angeles city attorney sued Health Net, claiming it illegally canceled the coverage of about 1,600 patients. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo also said the company illegally ran an incentive program in which it paid bonuses to an administrator for meeting targets of policy cancelations. Health Net acknowledged that such a program existed in 2002 and 2003 but was subsequently scrapped. ---snip---

(CBS/AP) A woman who had her medical coverage canceled as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer has been awarded more than $9 million in a case against one of California's largest health insurers. Patsy Bates, 52, a hairdresser from Gardena, had been left with more than $129,000 in unpaid medical bills when Health Net Inc. canceled her policy in 2004. Arbitration judge Sam Cianchetti ordered Health Net to repay that amount while providing $8.4 million in punitive damages and $750,000 for emotional distress. "It's hard to imagine a situation more trying than the one Bates has had to endure,"...

Life insurers to impose 'fat tax' on the obese, costing up to 50 per cent moreBy BECKY BARROW - More by this author » Last updated at 22:37pm on 22nd February 2008  A "fat tax" is to be imposed on the obese by life insurance firms, it emerged last night.  Around 50 per cent extra could be charged on new premiums - and the threshold at which the higher rate starts will be lowered. The increased charge can be up to 400 per cent if you fall into other high risk categories, such as being a smoker or having...

My daughter, who is 22 now, was in an auto accident last year. She flipped and totalled her car, and damaged her knee. All is ok, thank God. She is on my auto insurance policy. She had health care through her employer. I let her handle all the contacts and coordinate her benefits. Here is the situation. Auto insurance had $10k medical payments. They paid their obligation. Her healthcare insurance has a $2k deductible. The healthcare insurance tells her the auto insurance payments have no effect on the deductible, even though that $10k reduced what the healthcare insurance paid by...

AP News Alert ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) - Police say armed robbers steal art worth $100 million from a Zurich museum.

Ping An in $22bn push for overseas targets By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing Published: January 20 2008 19:19 | Last updated: January 21 2008 02:57 Ping An Insurance, China’s second-largest insurer, plans to raise almost $22bn to help fund aggressive foreign acquisition plans in China’s biggest-ever share sale. The size of the share issue – three times the amount the company raised in its initial public offering a year ago – indicates that Chinese companies want the financial resources to acquire or buy into weakened western rivals, according to analysts and bankers. Many US and European financial services companies have...

Cost of insuring corporate debt soars By Robert Cookson and Sarah O'Connor in London Mon Jan 21, 2:35 PM ET The cost of protecting corporate debt against default surged in Europe on Monday as fears intensified over the fate of global bond insurers and the $2,400bn of debt they guarantee. ADVERTISEMENT The credit market was in its blackest mood since the height of the summer's subprime panic after Ambac, one of the biggest bond insurers, or so-called monolines, was downgraded by Fitch Ratings on Friday. Smaller insurer ACA - which has been slashed to junk - managed on Sunday to...

If you're fortunate enough to think about retiring early, you've obviously been doing some smart financial planning. But in spite of all the calculating you've done to prepare for this next phase in your life, there's one area where you might want to take a second look at the numbers - health insurance. Take the situation of a colleague of mine. With a husband at full retirement age and eligible for Medicare, she decided to take early retirement so the two of them could travel. Being healthy, she felt comfortable with a high-deductible health insurance plan. But as she tells...

An insurance company has sued indicted law firm operator Mauricio Celis, saying it shouldn't have to pay legal bills for him and his firm. Evanston Insurance Company says Celis lied on an application for professional liability insurance by claiming he was a licensed attorney in Mexico and it should not have to pay lawyers to defend him in four civil suits filed against his firm, CGT Law Group International. Celis, 36, was indicted in November on charges of impersonating a police officer and an attorney and on charges of perjury. The Nueces County District Attorney's office says Celis lied when...

...Imposing a federal mandate is a hot issue on the campaign trail. It's also a burning issue in Congress, where Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Republican Sen. Bob Bennett are pushing the Healthy Americans Act, which would require everyone not in Medicaid or other government program to buy health insurance. ...These arguments are based on myths... The first myth is that it's fair to make everyone pay the same price for health insurance. It is not: For young people who rarely use health services, this is a rip-off. If people in their 20s paid attention to politics and voted, politicians...

Penalties for Massachusetts residents who can afford health insurance but do not purchase it in 2008 could quadruple compared with the maximum penalty in 2007, according to draft regulations released by the Department of Revenue yesterday. The maximum penalty for those who flout the law and do not buy health insurance would be $912 a year, compared to $219 in 2007. The higher penalty is intended to get those who are on the fence to buy health insurance. For those wavering, it could make more sense to pay for insurance than to pay the penalty.

Uninsured Mass. residents face monthly fines starting in January BOSTON—Come Jan. 1, Massachusetts residents who still haven't signed up for health insurance will start racking up fines on a monthly basis.

The family of a California teenager who died awaiting a liver transplant said they would sue the insurer whom they blame for their daughter's death. Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old from Glendale, Calif., died Thursday just a few hours after her insurer, Cigna HealthCare, approved a procedure it had previously described as "too experimental." Attorney Mark Geragos said that Cigna "maliciously killed her" and that he hopes to press murder or manslaughter charges against Cigna HealthCare for the death of Sarkisyan. District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons declined to comment on the request for murder or manslaughter charges, saying it would be...

On Thursday, shares of the nation’s biggest insurer of financial risk, MBIA, fell 26 percent... The move came a day after Standard & Poor’s downgraded another bond insurer and assigned a negative outlook to four companies, including MBIA. MBIA’s disclosure, which came in a data table posted on its Web site late Wednesday without any explanation, highlights the crisis in confidence that has racked the credit market. Investors, specialists say, are scared of what they do not know and no longer trust what they are told by the professionals who are supposed to know. * * * MBIA, whose name...

AUSTIN – Texas homeowners still pay far more for insurance than those in any other state, even after the overhaul passed by the Legislature four years ago that was supposed to lower rates. A new study from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners showed that the average annual premium in Texas for the most common homeowner policy was $1,372 a year, considerably more than the nationwide average of $764. Louisiana was the second-highest at $1,144 and Florida was third at $1,083. The premiums in all other states were less than $1,000.

A collision with a tractor-trailer seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved. After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Deborah Shank's care. Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Deborah's former employer, Wal-Mart Stores. Two years ago, the retail giant's health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care. A...

The end of employment-based health insurance isn’t in sight yet, but a study released this morning raises the possibility of a “tipping point” that will cause employers to consider alternatives. The Employee Benefit Research Institute said that “if one larger employer actually did drop its health benefits, others might follow for competitive reasons.” The report, published this morning on www.ebri.org, said work-based health insurance benefits, which are held by the majority of Americans who have health insurance, are still a competitive reason to attract employees.

With another hurricane season set to end this Friday, a controversy is brewing over decisions of the National Hurricane Center to designate several borderline systems as tropical storms. Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year's 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn "named storm" status. "They seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," said Frank, who directed the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987 and is now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV. "This year, I would put at least four storms...

To bring about universal coverage in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says people must start thinking about health insurance the way they do auto insurance - as a responsibility everyone must shoulder to make the system work. The idea polls well, and Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards are pushing it in their presidential campaigns. But a look at how mandatory insurance has fared in other places, from Switzerland to Massachusetts, shows it will not be easy to put into practice in California. The reason is mainly the cost. Health care is a lot cheaper in the countries that have...

WORST 5 STATES DEMOCRAT. BEST 5, REPUBLICAN. Failure Rates Double in 3rd Annual GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test ST. LOUIS, MO. (May 24, 2007) – Results from the 2007 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test indicate that one in six drivers on the road - roughly 36 million licensed Americans - would not pass their written DMV exam if taken today. The third annual survey by GMAC Insurance gauges driver knowledge of the rules of the road by testing licensed Americans on actual questions from state DMV license exams. According to this year's results, New York drivers ousted Rhode Island by...

LOS ANGELES – Health Net, Inc., one of California's largest health insurers, rewarded an analyst for canceling policies and saving it millions of dollars on medical reimbursements, it was reported Friday. The company avoided paying about $35.5 million in medical expenses by revoking about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006, the Los Angeles Times said. During that period, the Woodland Hills-based insurer paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses – based in part, the Times said, on meeting or exceeding the annual company goals for revoking policies. Most major health insurers review – and...

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. - Bryce Carrier’s cellphone rang at 3 a.m.: Help! The fire is almost to my house. Carrier hopped into his heavy-duty red Ford F-550 truck and sped to northeast Poway, dodging fallen eucalyptus and heading straight toward the wind-whipped blaze. He arrived to find flames marching up an embankment toward the multimillion-dollar home. Yanking out the hose in the back of his truck, he began dousing fire retardant along the perimeter of the property, the shrubs and the roof. When the flames hit the milky white liquid, they stopped. Another home saved. Carrier is a certified...

Midwest News S.D. Court Says Insurance Does Not Cover Lawsuit on Wife Stealing October 30, 2007 South Dakota's public policy prevents insurance from covering damages in lawsuits against those accused of stealing another's spouse, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The high court's unanimous decision said an Aberdeen doctor cannot make an insurance company protect him against a lawsuit that alleges he stole another man's wife. South Dakota public policy does not allow people to shift financial responsibility to insurance companies for their own intentional actions, the Supreme Court said. Alienation of affections is conduct that should not be encouraged...

Most of you may be surprised to hear that my columns are also published in the Canyon News, in Los Angeles. That fine paper circulates in Bel Air, Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills. Brentwood, Laurel Canyon, Los Feliz, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Melrose, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Topanga, Canyon, Westwood & Hollywood Hills. This column is written for people returning to their homes there – if their homes are still standing. Genius consists of not making the same mistake once. By that standard, y’all are not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed concerning fires in Southern California. Such fires...

Good news for readers who have dreamed of owning beachfront property in Miami: Even if you can't afford to buy the house, at least you can still pay to insure it. We're sure the current occupants will be most grateful for your generosity as they sip mojitos in South Beach. We've been warning of the financial disaster looming off the Florida coast ever since Governor Charlie Crist socialized the state's hurricane insurance market and put Florida taxpayers on the hook for billions. Earlier this year, Mr. Crist stumped for and then signed a law making the Florida government the state's...