Business

An appeals court in Ohio on Thursday issued a reversal and remand of an earlier judgment in which an employee was denied workers compensation coverage after a fall in an employer-controlled parking lot while arriving at work.

Shonda Hicks, a licensed insurance adjuster at Safelite Group, filed a claim for benefits with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation for injuries to her left hip and lower back that she claimed she sustained in a fall on the office’s sidewalk entrance, according to documents filed in Hicks v. Safelite Group, Inc., filed in the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Tenth District in Franklin County, Ohio.

Ms. Hicks’ claim was denied on three occasions by the commission before a trial court judgment ruled against her. Ms. Hicks appealed, arguing the trial court erred in its summary judgment on two counts violating the state’s coming and going rule.

On appeal, Ms. Hicks

AIR Worldwide said Friday that industry insured losses to onshore property from Hurricane Ida’s winds and storm surge will be $17 billion to $25 billion.

These estimates include insured physical damage to property, including residential, commercial, industrial and auto, for structures and their contents from winds, wind-borne debris, storm surge and the impact of demand surge.

The loss estimates also “reflect an adjustment to account for increased material and other repair costs in the current construction market” but do not include hurricane precipitation-induced flood losses, according to Boston-based AIR Worldwide, a Verisk Analytics Inc. business.

Ida made first landfall near Port Fourchon about 60 miles south of New Orleans, with a maximum sustained wind speed of 150 mph. Its second landfall was southwest of Galliano, with a maximum sustained wind speed of 145 mph.

Ida’s storm surge was along expected lines and generally not as severe as Hurricane Katrina’s, particularly

Vantage Group Holdings Ltd. said Thursday it is introducing new products in health care and excess and surplus casualty insurance in the United States and Bermuda.

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Vantage said in its statement its Bermuda team, which is headed by Denise Watkins, works with wholesale distribution partners to provide insurance and captive reinsurance on occurrence, claims made and integrated occurrence policy forms, as well as punitive damages and punitive damage wrap coverage.

It said the excess casualty portfolio will target classes of business including transportation, construction, consumer products, real estate, retail, hospitality, manufacturing and chemical.

In health care liability, its clients are primarily hospital systems and facilities, including academic medical facilities, specialty medical centers and managed care facilities, the statement said.

Vantage’s U.S. health care team, headed by Ray Pernsteiner, provides health care excess liability coverage for captive insurance and reinsurance.

It said clients include health systems and integrated delivery

Businesses that create, manufacture, distribute and sell products should consider product liability insurance. This type of coverage protects your business from costs if a product doesn’t work properly and causes harm to a third party.

Defects in your company’s product could cause injury or property damage. Even if a product is used incorrectly by the customer, a business could be liable for any damage caused by the product.

Product liability insurance also covers legal fees, medical costs and compensatory damages brought forth in third-party lawsuits. The potentially high cost of lawsuits makes product liability insurance a vital component of a small business insurance plan.

How

Insurance executives who attended a White House meeting on cybersecurity Wednesday say the meeting was productive and left them more optimistic about businesses’ ability to tackle the issue.

The U.S. government on Wednesday said it would work with industry to hammer out new guidelines to improve the security of the technology supply chain in a meeting kicked off by President Joe Biden, who appealed to private sector executives to “raise the bar on cybersecurity.”

Greg Hendrik, CEO of Bermuda-based, private equity-backed insurer and reinsurer Vantage Group Holdings Ltd., said the meeting was “reassuring.” 

“It was a very rich conversation that we had across a number of topics,” including the need for an estimated half-million cybersecurity personnel and to do a better job in sharing data, Mr. Hendrik said.

Attendee Joshua Motta, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Coalition Inc., which provides cyber liability insurance and security to organizations in

To help third-party sellers more easily and affordably secure product liability insurance, Marsh curated a panel of leading insurers of small commercial business and secured digital insurance distribution providers to support Amazon Insurance Accelerator.

A new mandate from Amazon requires third-party sellers to secure product liability coverage after reaching $10,000 in sales in one month, rather than three months, on Amazon.

Through the new Amazon Insurance Accelerator, US-based small business sellers can get product liability quotes and purchase a policy that meets their needs and Amazon’s new coverage requirements. 

Insurers participating in the Accelerator include: Chubb, Harborway Insurance underwritten by Spinnaker Insurance Company, Hiscox, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Markel, and Travelers. The policies are made available digitally by Bold Penguin and Simply Business, Inc.

“Product liability insurance allows Amazon sellers to focus on scaling their businesses, knowing they are protected should one of their products accidentally cause bodily harm or property

A wealthy Park Avenue cardiologist and his wife are having an art attack — because their insurance company refuses to reimburse them for $1.5 million in stolen artworks, according to new court papers.

Dr. Philip and Jamila Weintraub — longtime art lovers who have amassed “a multi-million-dollar collection of over one thousand items” — gripe that dealing with their insurance company to recoup their losses has been “hellish,” according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed Monday.

The New York City couple had insured their homes — and their roughly $7 million art and antiquities collection — with Chubb since 1990, “paying substantial premiums and renewing the policy each year,” the court documents say.

Then Philip — who rotated the artworks between the couple’s city apartment, his Park Avenue office and their “country home” — discovered in August 2019 that a storage room in their getaway pad had been rummaged

The Ohio insurance industry is keeping a close eye on a case before the Ohio Supreme Court that will decide whether businesses shut down during the coronavirus pandemic can make claims against their property insurance policies.

“You’d literally wipe out the entire industry in a matter of months,” said Dean Fadel of the Ohio Insurance Institute. 

Neuro-Communications Services Inc. versus Cincinnati Insurance is one of hundreds of similar cases being contested worldwide, he said.

The central question is: Does the coronavirus circulating in the community, landing on surfaces or being carried around by infected people result in property damage?

Neuro-Communication Services Inc. bought an all-risk policy from Cincinnati Insurance, which didn’t have an exclusions for losses caused by viruses or pandemics. Like thousands of businesses, Neuro-Communication had to shut down almost all of its operations from March 23 to May 4, 2020.

The company filed an insurance claim to cover

The Israeli insurtech company is planning to double its workforce in the next year. Asaf Lifshitz the CEO said that “the market has responded excellently to our solution”

Meir Orbach 14:5925.08.21