Claims

After many years of increasing arson losses from a variety of sources in the early 1990s, the number of reported arson fires decreased annually from 85,500 in 1996 to only 31,500 in 2005.

Seattle-based property and casualty insurance company Safeco reported approximately $30 million in pretax catastrophe losses due to the Pacific Northwest windstorm that ripped through the Puget Sound area during the 2006 holiday season.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency has teamed up with FEMA to provide more than $9.4 billion in disaster aid funds to the state.

Three companies have filed a joint friend of the court brief with the Indiana Supreme Court on a case that sets a potentially serious precedent for emotional distress claims in the insurance industry.

Traditional notions of insurance are nearly extinct, and the brave new world of retained risk has given new meaning to the notion of self-insurance as commercial consumers become the majority.

There are many ways to find out if a contractor has inflated a claim or taken other measures to secure gains on a project that are not warranted.

Writer Toni Morrison once said, "All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was."

A lack of or insufficient fact-based decision-making can be very expensive.