What’s new: In brief (July 12, 2004)

The Women in Insurance Cancer Crusade is hitting the track, the horse track that is, with a “Night at the Races” planned for Wednesday, September 1. The evening of fine dining and thoroughbred racing is slated for Toronto’s Woodbine racetrack, with proceeds from the $150 ticket price going to battle cancer. For more information, visit www.wicc.ca, or phone hosts Bill Blakeney at 416-408-4225 or Fred De Francesco at 905-278-4727.

Typhon Mindulle cut a deadly swath over the island of Taiwan last week, hitting the nation as a tropical storm on July 2. An update on the storm from Guy Carpenter’s CAT-I Reports notes at least 16 deaths are being blamed on the storm, with 12 people still missing as of July 12. In all, Mindulle’s torrential rains and flooding caused about US$363 million in damage, with rainfall in some areas reaching 250 centimeters. Disaster relief needed to deal with the aftermath should read US$790 million at least.

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) has produced a policy statement on the use credit scoring as an underwriting tool, saying attempts to fight the practice using the legal theory of “disparate impact” are not appropriate to insurance scores. Using the argument that credit scores have a disparate impact on ethnic or income groups ignores insurers’ argument that credit scores serve a legitimate business purpose. Also, the paper notes, because credit scoring was authorize by Congress under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, it is wrong for state legislators to try to circumvent this federal law.