The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) authorized emergency procedures to help agricultural producers impacted by extreme drought conditions. USDA’s Risk Management Agency is working with crop insurance companies to streamline and accelerate the adjustment of losses and issuance of indemnity payments to crop insurance policyholders in impacted areas. These new crop insurance flexibilities are part of USDA’s broader response to help producers impacted by drought in the West, Northern Great Plains, Caribbean and other areas.
Beazley enhanced its pioneering virtual care policy, which provides comprehensive protection against the interconnected risks facing digital health and wellness organizations. First launched in the U.S. in 2017 to support the expanding telehealth sector, demand for virtual care coverage has increased significantly during the pandemic, in line with the public’s growing appetite for remote tech-enabled health and wellness services.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign junior Maya Ramahi was named the recipient of Argo Group’s Diversity Scholarship. The scholarship was created through a partnership between Argo Group, an underwriter of specialty insurance in the property and casualty market, and the Spencer Educational Foundation, a provider of scholarships and grants for students of risk management and insurance.
Coalition has entered the excess cyber insurance market in Canada to help protect businesses with enhanced coverage and free access to Coalition’s state-of-the-art cybersecurity capabilities, including attack surface monitoring, an in-house response team of security experts, and a suite of services and tools. Coalition began offering excess cyber insurance in the United States in July 2020.
Clearcover is sponsoring NCAA athletes for the 2021-22 school year. Clearcover is the first auto insurance company to support individual student-athletes in the NIL era, pledging $10,000-per-player in this first of its kind endorsement deal.
Merchants Insurance Group began including inserts in their paper insurance bills to encourage policyholders to enroll in the company’s paperless billing and policy document delivery service. As an added incentive, the company is donating $1 to Mothers Against Drunk Driving for each policyholder who signs up for paperless delivery of policies.
Toni Jones, vice president of transportation marketing with Palomar Insurance Corporation, received the Insurer of the Year Award from the Alabama Independent Insurance Association. She has been actively involved with the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, Inc. for years and serves as one of six members of the Big “I” National Young Agents Committee representing the Southeast.
Howden launched a new climate risk and resilience division. Led by Charlie Langdale, the team will focus on risk transfer products that help to accelerate and de-risk the move towards a low carbon economy and to mitigate the results of climate change. The team will bring together ideas and insight from across the group and incubate them to create solutions that address the problems of tomorrow, at scale.
Battleface Inc. has launched Discovery travel insurance. The travel coverage leverages a modular approach that allows travelers to pick and choose the benefits they need based on their specific travel plans.
Setoo is entering into a merger agreement with Pattern, an InsurTech startup that is coming out of stealth mode. The joint company will operate across Europe and the U.S. under the name of Pattern. Pattern will help businesses generate new revenue streams and increase customer satisfaction through tailored insurance products, transforming all of their online transactions into protected experiences without the need to be an insurer.
Lightico announced an additional $15 million follow-on Series B funding round led by Capital One Ventures, bringing the total round to $27 million. Capital One Venture’s financial investment in Lightico, its second in less than a year, comes after scaling Lightico’s digital solution to fully digitize its own customer-facing interactions.
Pearl Insurance announced an expanded partnership with the insurance companies of AXA XL to be the exclusive carrier for their accountants professional liability program.
Risk Placement Services announced that its technology errors and omissions product with cyber risk coverage is now offered on the online RPS Small Business Platform. Available to quote-bind-issue online in just two minutes, according to the company, tech E&O/cyber risk covers legal fees and other related costs should a product or service fail or fall short of an expected outcome.
Forensic Weather Consultants purchased and moved into a new corporate headquarters outside of Albany, N.Y., where they intend to hire additional staff and develop new products for the insurance and legal industry. In conjunction with the move, the company launched www.weatherconsultants.com.
BluSky Restoration Contractors, LLC announced mergers with Bridgewater, Massachusetts-based Integrity Construction & Development, LLC and Carver, Massachusetts-based RebuildEx of Plymouth County, LLC.
TechAssure partnered with RiskAnalytics and ICE Cybersecurity to launch an exclusive cyber insurance solution called The ShadowNet Program. Using RiskAnalytics’ proprietary cybersecurity solutions and ICE Cybersecurity’s assessment and analytics platform, insureds can join a global network for cyber threat information-sharing and blocking of malicious IP addresses, effectively minimizing ransomware exposure.
HONK Technologies reached record revenue levels while continuing its product portfolio expansion during the first half of 2021. Additionally, as traffic levels have begun to rise, HONK reports it has been aggressively increasing the recruitment of service providers to join its partner network.
Pathpoint released its new vacants product, helping agents provide property owners with coverage that affords peace of mind while their building or land sits vacant. The product helps agencies quote non-admitted vacants coverage in under five minutes.
ClarionDoor, a provider of intelligent insurance product distribution software, reported positive 2021 first-half results indicating higher demand for digital distribution solutions in the commercial and specialty lines market.
Amwins launched an exclusive product that combines deadly weapons protection and sexual molestation liability coverages into a single policy. Exclusively available through Amwins, this is the first and only insurance product on the market that brings these coverages to small- and middle-market businesses on a single policy form.