When a 400-pound gorilla grabbed a 3-year-old boy at the Cincinnati Zoo, the sharpshooter who killed the ape wasn’t from the police. Instead, the shooter was a specially trained zoo staffer on one of the many dangerous-animal emergency squads at animal parks nationwide. Continue reading
Considering how much we already pay for health care, you have to wonder why doctors, hospitals and insurance providers so often fail to coordinate their patients’ care.
Your primary care doctor, the hospital you visit and the various specialists you are sent to are typically part of different organizations that do not communicate effectively with one another. Balls get dropped and care suffers. In part, it’s a consequence of siloed medical practice. Continue reading
Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab says it has uncovered an online marketplace where criminals from all over the world sell access to more than 70,000 hacked corporate and government servers for as little as $6 each.
Kaspersky discovered the forum after a tip from a European internet service provider. The market, called xDedic, is operated by hackers, who are probably Russian speaking, that have ditched their traditional business model of just selling passwords and have graduated instead to earning a commission from each transaction on their black market. Continue reading
A 2015 Glassdoor survey noted that 79% of employees favor more benefits/perks to a pay increase. Most small businesses lean toward a one-size-fits-all employee benefits package. However, such benefit packages are not a favorite among employees, or business owners who want to meet the diverse needs of their workforce. This has brought about an increase in the number of employees favoring consumerized employee benefits. With consumerized employee benefits, employees can pick and choose benefits that complement their lifestyle and financial goals. Heading the list of must-have benefits are Health Insurance Reimbursement and Retirement Saving Plans. Continue reading
On the property/casualty side, we’re looking more and more closely at drone technology, the underwriting side you can survey properties much more efficiently, much more accurately, and you can survey more dimensions than a human could on their own. Temperatures, and structural elements, as opposed to just what the naked eye can see. On the claims side you can assess damage in certain territories for where disasters have occurred, and which can immediately result in not just more accurate information but faster claims payout which is what we want for all of our insureds. Continue reading
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that one-in-six Americans gets sick every year from contaminated food or beverages. Those in the restaurant industry cannot ignore the risks. The recent chain of events that roiled Chipotle Mexican Grill has given one insurance broker the perfect opportunity to talk about needed coverage options with clients. Continue reading
One continuing issue is the problem that health care reform poses for the staffing industry and similar employers. This type of business may find they are now obligated to offer health coverage to relatively short-term and employees who work variable hours. This will continue to be a learning curve for companies such as temp agencies.
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A left-turn at the light with oncoming traffic; the collision occurs and now you are headed to intercompany arbitration on the subrogation claim as the parties dispute who was at fault.
An all too familiar scenario for those adjusting auto losses, but an increasingly relevant fact pattern in the world of subrogation recovery. While 85-90% of all subrogation claims are resolved between carriers and self-insureds without a problem, it is the other 10-15% that can make the difference to the bottom line for insurance organizations.
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