US-headquartered insurance holding company W. R. Berkley Corporation has continued to expand its use of its Lifson Re collateralized reinsurance sidecar through 2025, with written premiums ceded to the sidecar rising to $494 million, the highest level the company has recorded to date.For 2026, the Lifson Re P&C vehicle appears set to maintain its momentum, holding $418 million in equity with its 32.5% share remaining unchanged. This follows a significant 2025 capitalisation of $418 million, which marked the vehicle’s largest capital raise at the time. At the start of 2025, W. R. Berkley also increased the quota share cession rate…
Author: Awais
Three Tennessee plaintiffs, including two minors, sued Elon Musk’s xAI on Monday, alleging that it knowingly designed its Grok image generator to let people create sexually explicit content by using real photos of others. The lawsuit, filed in the San Jose, California federal court, is seeking class-action status for people in the United States who were “reasonably identifiable” in sexualized images or videos generated by Grok based on real images of themselves. The artificial intelligence company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. After an outcry over sexually explicit content generated by the chatbot, xAI said in…
Howden said Michael Parrish has been appointed CEO, Americas in a move the broker said would align better for clients. “Howden Americas, under Mike’s leadership, will bring together the exciting new retail broking operations in the US with our fast-growing business in Latin America,” said David Howden, CEO of Howden. In another move, Sonia Caamano will lead Latin America and Caribbean as CEO, Howden said. She will report to Parrish, and will be supported by Jose Ignacio Lathrop, who will be taking the role of executive chairman, Latin America. Caamano was previously the CEO of International Growth Markets at Howden.…
Owners of one of the biggest towing businesses in Southern California were arrested on multiple counts of felony insurance fraud. Bothers Mark Hassan and Ahmed Hassan were charged with underreporting employee payroll and paying parts of employees’ wages in cash to defraud workers’ compensation insurers out of $6 million worth of insurance premiums. The California Department of Insurance launched an investigation after getting two fraud referrals from an insurance company accusing Mark Hassan, owner of Hadley Tow, of underreporting the payroll of his company. The CDI investigation expanded after a third referral alleging his brother, Ahmed Hassan, owner of California…
From Alabama to North Carolina, tornadoes and probable tornadoes ripped a roof off a warehouse, damaged homes and left many without power across the Southeast. News sites reported that a confirmed tornado, with winds of 85 mph, struck an air-conditioning and heating business in Charlotte and tore a section of the metal roof Monday morning. No one was injured but several workers witnessed the event, Spectrum News and other outlets reported. The National Weather Service confirmed it was an EF0 tornado that touched down. In northwest Alabama, at least one tornado, with 105-mph winds, was confirmed near the Tennessee border…
Amanda Miller was 30 and pregnant with her second child in Hershey, Pennsylvania, when she developed depression. After she gave birth, her depression worsened. It was joined by a slew of unexplained health problems. Miller, a neuroscientist, said she saw several psychiatrists and got prescriptions for drug after drug. Over two years, she tried four antidepressants and two antipsychotics. None of that helped — until her primary care doctor noticed high levels of an autoimmune marker in her blood. A specialist then ran “every test in the book,” Miller said. Eventually, she was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus and…
After years of litigation, PDX North, Inc., a last-mile automotive parts distribution company, has agreed to pay up to $7 million to resolve worker misclassification violations involving its delivery drivers, announced New Jersey officials. The settlement brings to a close a case that has seen PDX lose challenges to the state’s worker classification laws in federal district and appeals courts before the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the firm’s final appeal. According to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the New Jersey Attorney General, PDX has agreed to reclassify its delivery drivers as employees to…
A Crofton, Maryland woman has pleaded guilty in two separate felony theft schemes, according to Attorney General Anthony G. Brown. On Monday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, Carolyn Rae Aldridge admitted to stealing a combined total of $185,296.28 during the two schemes, reported the attorney general’s office. In the first scheme, between August 2017 and January 2021, Aldridge stole 96 checks from her then-employer, American Builders Corp, Inc. for a total loss of $173,004.43. Aldridge worked as the office manager for ABC Builders and used her position to steal the checks and deposit them into her personal bank account.…
AP Benefit Advisors, LLC, owned by AssuredPartners Capital, Inc., filed suit on March 13, 2026, in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The case names former account executive Kelly Hess, former AP employee Jason Rilley, and DelMarVa Insurance Brokers LLC as defendants. AP describes what it calls a deliberate, coordinated effort to divert client accounts generating more than $75,000 in annual revenue.
The head of the International Maritime Organization has said that naval escorts through the Strait of Hormuz will not “100 percent guarantee” the safety of ships attempting to transit the waterway, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Military assistance was “not a long-term or sustainable solution” to opening up the strait, Arsenio Dominguez told FT. The critical Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flow, remains largely closed off, raising energy prices and fears of inflation. Read more: US $20B Reinsurance Plan Unlikely to Restart Gulf Shipping Without Liability Cover The closure is…
The city of New Haven’s insurance company is insisting that the city pay back the $3.55 million the insurer paid to settle claims over a 2019 rooming house fire in which two people were killed. Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association Insurance Co. has alleged that the Connecticut city breached the terms of its excess insurance policy by not informing it of the wrongful death claims “as soon as practicable” but instead waiting five years when the trial had already begun before notifying it. Both of the underlying lawsuits alleged that the fire victims were residents of a West Street building that was…
AM Best reports it has revised the outlooks to stable from negative and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A+ (Superior) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICR) of “aa-” (Superior) of Amica Mutual Insurance Co. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Amica Property and Casualty Insurance Co. At the same time, AM Best has revised the outlooks to stable from negative and affirmed the FSR of A+ (Superior) and the Long-Term ICR of “aa-” (Superior) of Amica Life Insurance Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Amica Mutual. The Amica Mutual companies are domiciled in Lincoln, Rhode Island. The…
Zenkyoren has returned to the catastrophe bond market to add to its capital market backed aggregate Japanese earthquake reinsurance protection, with an initial $100 million target for this new Nakama Re Pte. Ltd. (Series 2026-1) sponsorship, Artemis has learned.Zenkyoren, the Japanese National Mutual Insurance Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, buys one of the largest catastrophe reinsurance towers in the world and it has been utilising the capital markets for protection via sponsorship of series of catastrophe bonds since 2003. This new Nakama Re 2026-1 issuance will be the sixteenth catastrophe bond directly sponsored by Zenkyoren that we have listed in our…
Insuring vessels to sail through the Strait of Hormuz is still possible, even if at a very high cost, according to people involved in the market. The cost of coverage has leaped to about 5% of the value of a ship, roughly five times the level seen in the earliest days of the Iran war, and an even larger multiple of the fractions of a percentage point seen in periods when there’s relatively little conflict, the people said, asking not to be named discussing private information. That means insuring an oil tanker worth $100 million would cost about $5 million.…