What’s new: In brief (June 23, 2004)

Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) has honored seven grade seven and eight students for projects on auto theft including stories, a video, a poster and a comic strip. “The typical auto thief will steal his or her first car at 13,” not Barry Ward, executive director of the National Committee to Reduce Auto Theft. “Young people represent the first line in preventing auto theft.”

Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) to the end of 2007. Insurers already welcomed news the program will run until December 31, 2005 and were quick to thank the four House members who introduced the legislation. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) says terrorism remains an uninsurable risk partly because information needed to underwrite such a risk is classified property of the U.S. government. As well, there has been no claims experience on which to base pricing except for 9/11. “The two-year extension will permit Congress to assess alternatives to protecting the economy from future terrorist attacks,” notes NAMIC senior vice president David Winston.

U.S. insurance associations are asking a group of eight state insurance regulators to cease their credit-scoring study, raising issues about the legality of the research. A letter to regulators from a lawyer representing the Property/Casualty Insurers Association (PCI) and NAMIC, suggests the study may stretch the limits of regulatory power as it forces insurers to give out information not verify compliance with existing laws but as a basis to develop new law. Already several states have withdraw from the multi-state study.