December 30, 2011
Justice J. Michael Eakin, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s notorious “rhyming judge,” has struck again, this time in a majority ruling vacating an insurance fraud conviction. Eakin, who has rankled some on the state’s high court with his penchant for delivering opinions written in rhyming verse, applied his unique brand of poetic jurisprudence to a six-page [...]
December 30, 2011
David Black has resigned as director of the South Carolina Department of Insurance, effective Dec. 28, the department announced in a media advisory. No reason was given for Black’s departure, which comes just 11 months after he was named to the post by Gov. Nikki Haley. Black, a former president of Greenville, S.C.-based Liberty Life [...]
December 21, 2011
Four state senators, four representatives and a member of the public have been appointed to Texas’ Joint Interim Committee to Study Seacoast Territory Insurance, charged with examining alternative methods to provide coverage to coastal residents. Additionally, the committee will study the residual markets of windstorm and hail insurance in other states, as well as windstorm-related [...]
December 20, 2011
This past week, CFIRE Deputy Director (and OOTS editor) R.J. Lehmann and I met with new director of the Federal Insurance Office: Michael McRaith. I had met him only once before, very briefly, so this was my first real conversation with him ever. Initial impressions: he’s a very good choice to lead the office. Our [...]
December 19, 2011
Economic problems in Europe, and particularly the sovereign debt problems faced by several members of the Eurozone, pose a serious risk for the U.S. economic outlook, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Sobel said in Dec. 16 testimony before a House subcommittee. All told, the European Union buys 20% of U.S. export goods, 30% of U.S. [...]
December 15, 2011
Greetings from Florida, where we proudly decorate our palm trees with balls and lights this time of year. Last week marked the final round of interim committee meetings before the Legislature convenes for its regular session the second week of January—almost two months earlier than normal, due to the redistricting process. For all intents and [...]
December 15, 2011
With just two more days before the National Flood Insurance Program is set to expire, the U.S. House voted to reform and extend the program for five years as part of a bill that also would extend the expiring tax cuts, including cuts to the payroll tax. Passed by a 234-193 largely party-line vote, the [...]
December 9, 2011
Stagnant economic growth in the United States isn’t merely a function of the recession that kicked off four years ago. Its roots can be traced back decades, a period when many of the legal and social institutions that we historically have relied upon to promote innovation, such as patents and public schools, appear to have [...]
December 9, 2011
I’ve been publicly critical of the Insurance Data Protection Act, which was endorsed yesterday by a 7-5 tally of the House Financial Services Committee’s insurance subcommittee. It’s been interesting to see that I was joined in my criticism by the likes of Ranking Member Luis Guttierez, D-Ill., and opposed by most of the major property [...]
December 8, 2011
Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., have introduced legislation that would exempt some smaller companies from the regulatory burden of complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s Section 404 top-down risk assessment process. Under S.1962, the Startup Expansion and Investment Act, newly public companies with less than $1 billion in market capitalization could opt out [...]
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