The chemical trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is a breakdown product of numerous chemicals, including CFC replacement gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning, pharmaceuticals such as gases used in inhalation anaesthesia, pesticides, solvents and other forever chemicals from a class known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Concentrations of TFA have been increasing in rainwater, drinking water, soil and plants over the past two decades. Environmental removal of any of the thousands of different PFAS chemicals is extremely challenging because existing removal technology is difficult to scale up. If emissions aren’t restricted, the projected cost of PFAS removal has been estimated at…
Author: Awais
Tristan Baurick, Verite News and Halle Parker, Verite News NEW ORLEANS — Sarah Hess started taking her toddler, Josie, to Mickey Markey Playground in 2010 because she thought it would offer a refuge from lead. After a routine doctor visit revealed Josie had lead poisoning, Hess quickly traced the source to the crumbling paint in her family’s century-old home in the Bayou St. John neighborhood. While it underwent lead remediation, the family stayed in a newer, lead-free house near Markey. “Everyone was telling us the safest place to play was outside at playgrounds, so that’s where we went,” Hess said.…
Swiss Re has now secured its upsized target of $150 million of aggregate and subsequent event retrocessional reinsurance covering North American peak perils from its new Matterhorn Re Ltd. (Series 2026-1) catastrophe bond, while each of three tranches of notes priced at the top-end of initial guidance ranges, Artemis can report.Global reinsurance firm Swiss Re came back to the catastrophe bond market around the middle of January when it had an initial target size for this issuance of $125 million. At that time no individual sizes were given for the three tranches of Series 2026-1 notes that Matterhorn Re Ltd.…
Singapore is urging for international cooperation to curb shadow fleet vessels operating just beyond its territorial waters, as scrutiny intensifies on ships used to evade sanctions. “Singapore fully implements United Nations Security Council resolutions and does not condone illegal or deceptive activities by shadow fleet vessels,” Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow said in a written reply to a parliamentary question dated Wednesday. He added that illicit vessels may be denied entry or detained in Singapore. The world’s largest bunkering hub already works closely with neighboring countries to combat illicit maritime activity in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, sharing information…
According to GEICO, Dr. Bhargav Patel and his company, Patel Medical Care, submitted approximately $3.4 million in fraudulent claims between August 2019 and April 2023. The insurer alleges third-party brokers steered accident victims to one of four Patel clinics in exchange for kickbacks. Patients would get a brief consultation, rarely lasting longer than 30 minutes, then be pushed through a predetermined treatment plan regardless of what they actually needed.
Samuel Tremblett pleaded with a 911 operator to be rescued from his burning Tesla Inc. Model Y SUV after a crash in October: “I can’t get out, please help me.” The transcript of the 20-year-old’s emergency call was included in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the latest to allege that a driver or passenger died after they were unable to open the electrically powered doors on their Tesla vehicle after a crash. “It’s on fire. Help please,” Tremblett said, according to the lawsuit. “I am going to die.” Details of the crash were previously reported by Bloomberg News as part of…
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a proposed class action against New Jersey government officials on behalf of families of nursing home residents who died early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 10,000 elderly residents of New Jersey nursing homes and veterans’ homes died during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, New Jersey reached a $53 million settlement with the families of 119 seniors who died in state-run veterans’ homes. Plaintiffs who brought the suit are the daughters and estate administrators of three private-nursing-home residents who died in April and May 2020 after contracting COVID-19. They blame the deaths on policies…
Three weeks into the 2026 Florida legislative session, with bill deadlines approaching, Florida Senate President Ben Albritton said Wednesday that he expects no major changes to Florida’s property insurance laws this year. The reason: Landmark legislation passed in 2022 and 2023 has essentially fixed the big problems that were causing insurance premiums to spike across the state. Those statutes have suppressed the “thousands of frivolous lawsuits” that were once brought over property insurance claims, Albritton said at a press availability Wednesday morning, broadcast on the Florida Channel. He echoed with what other lawmakers, regulators and insurance industry representatives have said…
Gencon sees it differently. The captive insurer argues that its general liability policies, starting from November 2001, narrowed the sexual misconduct exclusion to cover only “the actual or threatened sexual abuse or sexual molestation.” That language, Gencon contends, preserved coverage for negligence and derivative liability claims, which formed the basis of the students’ cases against Church entities.
Following in the footsteps of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, analysts from Fitch Ratings and Morningstar weighed in with these P/C insurance market forecasts in the past week: “Fitch Ratings expects the U.S. property/casualty market to continue softening in 2026, with increased competition, abundant capital and downward pricing pressure. “Despite the high number of litigations and escalating payouts, the U.S. casualty insurance market is still an attractive market because of its size, product and regional diversity, and pricing flexibility,” according to Morningstar. “We expect casualty insurance pricing to remain divergent from the rest of the P&C insurance market in the near term,”…
Industry trade associations side with caution to ensure regulations promote safety as autonomous vehicles (AVs) share the road with traditional automobiles. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies and the American Property Casualty Association each submitted statements to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for its Feb. 4 hearing on the future of self-driving vehicles. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chairman of the committee, said AVs are already on the road and they present some potential in improving safety and traffic, but to date Congress “has failed to establish a clear federal framework to govern AV deployment.” “That inaction…
Thorsten Neumann, president and chief executive of TAPA EMEA, said criminals are combining physical theft with identity fraud, using forged documentation and cloned business profiles to gain access to cargo movements. “We are seeing shell companies, cloned legitimate firms and the routine use of fake insurance certificates, forged email domains and look-alike websites,” he said. “The concern is that artificial intelligence will make these tactics easier to scale, increasing both the frequency and severity of losses.”
Update: On February 3, 2026, the President signed the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026” which includes funding provided in the FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor HHS) conference bill and accompanying report detailed below. This resource was originally published on January 22, 2026. The Committee on Appropriations released its FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor HHS) conference bill and accompanying report on January 20, 2026. While most U.S. global health funding is provided to the State Department through a separate appropriations bill (see the KFF budget summary on this…
SCOR, the Paris-headquartered global reinsurance company, took advantage of the highly competitive retrocession market at the January 1st, 2026, reinsurance renewals, optimising its placements as it benefited from reduced pricing, according to Jean-Paul Conoscente, P&C CEO at SCOR.As we wrote earlier today, SCOR grew its traditional reinsurance portfolio by 4.7% at 1.1 2026, with the firm highlighting that favourable retro market conditions supported an expected increase in its underwriting ratio of 2.0 percentage points for the year ahead. Recently, during a call with analysts on its experience at the January 1st renewals, Conoscente discussed the retro market in his opening…