Best Cheap Insurance Quotes

Bloomberg.com is running a story by David Evans that will appear on the newsstands beginning August 16 in the September issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine.

Admittedly the story has little to do with business insurance.

Rather, the article is about “Alliance Accounts.” This is the way Prudential Financial pays out death benefits to beneficiaries of our fallen soldiers. Our readers include insurance professionals, small business people, and financial planners, so I’d like some feedback on this practice.

Prudential has released a study tracking the financial behavior of women over a ten-year period. What are the trends? What are strengths, changes, and challenges faced by women and expressed in their behaviors? What unique challenges do women face as a part of their financial experience? These are a few of the many questions explored in the report.

The report suggests that 95% of the women surveyed were financial decision makers and 86% of married women were the primary decision makers in their household.

NOAA weather reported that Tropical Storm Bonnie was about 155 miles southeast of Miami at 5 a.m. The storm is expected to pass over the southern tip of Florida and the Florida Keys later today.

The storm will then pass out into the Gulf of Mexico, possibly gaining strength where the storm may delay more work on the cap to the Deepwater Horizon well.

As the storm passed through the Bahamas, no flooding or serious injuries were reported. Winds are reported to be 40 m.p.h. with higher gusts.

Twitter is a great site where people come together to post “tweets” of 140 words or less of things the person considers relevant. Others can “follow” the person and review these pearls of wisdom. For example, if one wanted to “follow” me, they could do so by following lawboop.

Businesses use Twitter as well. Big businesses use the site to announce promotions, specials, new products, while smaller businesses use it to establish an identity or particular expertise.

For Buckeyes, the win certainly is not as exciting as the one that will occur on November 27, 2010 in Columbus, but it is certainly up there.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office announced that a settlement has been reached with insurer AIG in a class-action case involving three large public pension funds. The total settlement (including some ancillary cases and matters) is $1.0095 billion dollars. A significant part of that settlement is to be paid by an AIG stock offering, so it remains to be seen if the settlement amount can be paid.

According to Attorney General Richard Cordray the class-action lawsuit alleged:

The Dodd-Frank Act has passed the U.S. Senate with enough votes to avoid yet another Republican filibuster threat.

The Act, at Title V, includes substantial insurance industry reforms. The most significant is the establishment of a Federal Insurance Office (FIO) as a part of the Department of Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury is also given rule making authority to implement/delegate the new duties of this office. The Act also establishes that surplus and reinsurance insurers will be subject to the regulation of their “domicile” instead of having to comply with multiple state requirements.

Two types of business insurance constitute a significant percentage of most companies’ insurance costs: health insurance and workers’ compensation. While health insurance may be mandatory for certain businesses under recent reforms and depending on the state, workers’ compensation is mandatory (with limited exceptions and depending on the state) and a necessary expense of doing business.

One significant way to reduce business insurance costs is to classify workers correctly. Paying “roofer” rates for an office clerk, can cost your business significant premium dollars. Monitor your workforce and classify each employee to their specific classification.

One of the reasons I enjoy writing about business insurance is because the insurance industry is often the market maker when it comes to significant change in the world. Yes, in the era of the AIG failure and several significant ethical lapses by insurers, it is hard to regard insurers as a force of change for the good. But, history proves otherwise. Fire and building codes, as an example, were driven by insurer efforts to reduce risk. Automobile safety left in the hands of manufacturers was slow to change. Once insurers got involved, however, safety changes were implemented (how safe was your parents’ car?).

For our Florida readers, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation in Florida has issued a statement advising policyholders that mail to it corporate offices (including premium checks) was fraudulently redirected between June 24 and June 29, 2010.

The affected address is 6676 Corporate Center Parkway, Jacksonville. The U.S. Post Office is investigating.

Policyholders who mailed a payment are being asked to call 1.888.685.1555 to confirm the payment was received. The company is asking policyholders to call first to “discuss options” before stopping payment of any premium check.

GEICO reminds us that the Fourth of July is a great time to enjoy family and traditions and it is also one of the most deadly holidays of the year for drivers.

If you are an employer with commercial auto insurance and drivers under your policy, than it is important that fleet safety is reviewed with the drivers regularly. But, that advice does not end at the workplace.

GEICO offers the following tips:

• Save your text messages for a time when you’re not driving.
• Make sure everyone in the car, backseat passengers too, are wearing safety belts.