Tag: ISO

Same old song – this time to the tune of $1.88billion

Insurance risk specialist Verisk Analytics Inc. raised $1.88 billion Tuesday in the biggest IPO by a U.S. company since March 2008 after pricing its shares at a higher-than-expected $22 each, according to the Insurance Journal.

The sale of the shares, which had been expected to price at between $19 and $21, marked the biggest IPO by a U.S. company since a $19.6 billion offering by credit card operator Visa Inc .

Verisk, which does most of its business through its subsidiary ISO and is owned by a group of insurance companies, collects actuarial and underwriting data related to U.S. property and casualty insurance risks.

Sing it with me, Mr. CLS! Continue reading “Same old song – this time to the tune of $1.88billion”

Chaney closes door to State Farm’s proposed 45% rate increase – a screen door to let AIR in and out

The Sun Herald reports Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney on Wednesday told State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. he has temporarily denied its request to increase homeowners’ rates by 45 percent in the state’s three coastal counties. h/t Y’all Politics

Chaney said he notified the company he needs more information. Chaney said he ultimately intends to deny the request, but: “We’re open to negotiating with them.”  He said it could be months before a final decision is made…

State Farm spokesman David Majors said the company intends to fulfill Chaney’s request.  “We’ll provide as much information as we can and work with the department with any request so that we can get the rate we’ve requested in the lower three counties,” Majors said.

State Farm is the largest insurer in Mississippi. Chaney said the company has about 26,000 policies in coastal Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties, which were hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005…

Chaney said at a press luncheon this week in Jackson that he didn’t think State Farm’s 45 percent request is justified. “State Farm told us they would not write any new business on the Gulf Coast even if we gave them the rate increase,” Chaney said Tuesday. “I don’t know what the incentive would be to even give them a rate increase.”

FireShot capture #031 - 'ISO - ISO Family of Companies' - www_iso_com_About-ISO_ISO-Family-of-Companies AIRDuring those “months”, Chaney will receive a report from AIR Worldwide.

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney and wind engineering firm AIR Worldwide have agreed to terms on a contract on a cost/benefit study required by the Mississippi Legislature leading to development of a hurricane wind damage mitigation.

AIR  – a member of the ISO Family of Companies – said it will also recommend the best ways to Continue reading “Chaney closes door to State Farm’s proposed 45% rate increase – a screen door to let AIR in and out”

The ACC Virus Continued

The last post told how big insurance (let’s call it “BIG-I”) created Insurance Services Office (ISO) as their industry shill. ISO became the “handlers” if you will of various puppet commissioners. Among other things, ISO finessed rate increases and designed trap door policies (“coverage parts”). (Gruesome, I know, but it’s their word not mine). Frankly ISO did whatever Salvatore “BIG-I” said do. Of course ISO was BIG-I cause it was owned and controlled – as a non-profit if you can believe it – by BIG-I. Thing was nobody really seemed to notice or care.

Well remember how that Georgia cracker almost capsized BIG-I, went hog wild and damn near destroyed the Sherman exemption all by hisself? That was a real tipping point in BIG-I history, back in ’44, but thanks to a secret industry formula, lobbyists + cash = act of Congress (L+$=AOC), BIG-I was sitting upright again. McCarran-to-the-rescue in ’45. We’d just finished whupping a boatload of Kraut butt and everybody’s pretty happy. Momma got a toaster, baby’s got a biscuit, and daddy . . . a shy-knee-new Dynaflow.

Another 40 years pass, and this time it’s ISO who almost wrecks the ship. See in those 40 years insurance went from something you might consider taking out if you just wanted, to full blown Jersey style marketing: we got an offer of coverage you can’t refuse. And we couldn’t refuse, but not cause of Bruno. Forty years of running wild, untouched by fed regulation or anti-trust, BIG-I had by now hijacked so many legislatures you couldn’t buy a house, go to the hospital, get surgery, drive a car, get a loan or anything else unless you first bought insurance. (Wonder why it never got reclassified as a special purpose contract or public interest contract, you know, something making it subject to some regulatory terms; it sure ain’t my idea of a negotiated, voluntary contract).

By ’88, ISO had racked and sacked a bushel basket of commissioners but in those days, BIG-I hadn’t yet figured out how to trash state AG’s and get people to buy into it. But some of these AG’s were getting pretty darn uppidy about ISO’s “commissioner handling.” AG’s in those days couldn’t be trashed by paid shills like Robert Hartwig cause BIG-I hadn’t perfected media pimping. BTW, speaking of Hartwig, here’s one of our own judges, third from left, at a 2004 tort reform confab, an invited guest of Hartwig and BIG-I. Continue reading “The ACC Virus Continued”