Loss Control

An estimated four billion peoplemore than half the worlds populationwill be tuning in to what the BBC calls the first truly Digital Olympics.

Creating the years biggest-budget blockbuster films means that actors and film crews must take some big-budget risks, and it is up to insurers to guarantee that in the event of some mishap producers and financiers will have financial protection when production doesnt go as planned.

National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. says it has $33 million in municipal bond exposure to the city of San Bernardino, Calif., as the city becomes the third in the state this year to file for bankruptcy protection.

Reinsurers say companies have suffered intensifying weather-related impacts in the past three years, but fewer than a third of those companies are actively responding to the risk, increasing the likelihood that companies will be unprepared to deal with unimaginable environmental coverage and loss costs.

The final report on the crash of the Air France flight that took the lives of the crew and 228 passengers will not impact rates, but will bring pilot training to the attention of underwriters, says a broker from Willis Group Holdings.

A combination of higher coastal populations, artificially suppressed rates for last-resort insurers, and the inability of insurers to charge rates commensurate with risk along the coast has driven the residual property market in hurricane-exposed states to new peaks in both exposure value and policy levels, says the Insurance Information Institute....