Collision Course

Link: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/staged-car-crashes-insurance-fraud.html

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There’s a narrow path to such ostentation for the non-famous and non-college-interested who mock the idea of an actual job. Mize found his muse in the con and his ability to rope others into it. Here’s how they say it happened: He struck when you wanted cash. When totems of the middle class were slipping from reach. When you needed a down payment. To pay off credit cards. To start a business. When asking your parents for money made you feel like a failure. When you were suffocated by medical bills, neither earning enough to pay nor poor enough for government help.

Yet money alone doesn’t completely explain why the people closest to Mize entered the ring. Mize had a way of making himself your center of gravity, the one from whom you wanted approval, mentorship, love. Mize could be fun, even thrilling. But getting all that meant pleasing him. And pleasing him meant fraud.

Author(s): Lauren Smiley

Publication Date: 3 Oct 2022

Publication Site: NY Mag

Post Office scandal explained: What the Horizon saga is all about

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56718036

Excerpt:

The Post Office had prosecution powers and, between 1999 and 2015, it prosecuted 700 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses – an average of one a week – based on information from a computer accounting system called Horizon. Another 283 cases were brought by other bodies including the Crown Prosecution Service.

Some went to prison for false accounting and theft. Many were financially ruined, even though they had repeatedly highlighted problems with the software.

After 20 years, campaigners won a legal battle to have their cases reconsidered. To date only 93 convictions have been overturned. Under government plans, victims will be able to sign a form to say they are innocent, in order to have their convictions overturned and claim compensation.

….

Horizon was introduced by the Post Office in 1999. The system was developed by the Japanese company Fujitsu, for tasks like accounting and stocktaking.

Sub-postmasters complained about bugs in the system after it falsely reported shortfalls – often for many thousands of pounds.

Some attempted to plug the gap with their own money, as their contracts stated that they were responsible for any shortfalls. Many faced bankruptcy or lost their livelihoods as a result.

The Horizon system is still used by the Post Office, which describes the latest version as “robust”.

….

Nobody has ever been held accountable for the scandal.

The heavily criticised former Post Office chief executive, Paula Vennells, said she would hand back her CBE after a petition calling for its removal gathered more than a million signatures.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey is among several politicians who have faced questions, as he was postal affairs minister in the coalition government. He said he regretted not asking “tougher questions” of Post Office managers, describing what had happened as “dreadful”.

The inquiry is hearing from Post Office investigators, Fujitsu, civil servants and others.

Author(s): By Kevin Peachey, Michael Race & Vishala Sri-Pathma

Publication Date: 11 Jan 2024

Publication Site: BBC News

The 96 Billion Dollar Game: You Are Losing

Link:https://burypensions.wordpress.com/2023/06/12/the-96-billion-dollar-game-you-are-losing/

Excerpt:

That was back in 1993 when the book on “how personal injury litigation has become a costly game to you’ came out so these quotes may be outdated in their numbers.

….

The Insurance Information Institute estimates that 40 percent of all medical malpractice insurance is written through companies owned by doctors. (page 88)

Litigation is necessary to help the litigants acquire the information necessary to settle cases and to resolve questions of injury, liability, value and law….I estimate that no more than ten percent of the lawsuits currently filed need information that can be obtained only through the deposition process. However, once the information has been obtained, usually within a matter of a few months after the filing, most of these cases should settle. (page 114)

In the less regulated or unregulated states, the insurance rates are lower because the companies can compete freely. The problem is not the insurance companies ripping off the public but the stifling regulations. (page 123)

….

“The most blatant examples of misguided regulatory involvement in automobile insurance prices occurred in Massachusetts and New Jersey”. Jean C. Hiestand, the V.P. General Counsel of State Farm Insurance Company, in Competition And the Rating Laws: Do They Make A Difference? “They not only pay the highest rates but a large percentage are in the involuntary markets”. (page 149)

Many states do not allow insurance protection for punitive damages because punitive damages are to punish you for conduct beyond ordinary carelessness….Where punitive damages are sought, you have read that juries sometimes find against an innocent person or company for large sums. Worse yet, such debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. (page 189)

Author(s): John Bury

Publication Date: 12 Jun 2023

Publication Site: burypensions

Why Two States Remain Holdouts on Distracted Driving Laws

Link: https://khn.org/news/article/distracted-driving-state-laws-two-holdouts-missouri-montana/

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Despite such tragedies, Missouri is one of two states — the other is Montana — that do not prohibit all drivers from text messaging while operating vehicles. (Missouri has such a law for people 21 and under.)

Before this year, Missouri state lawmakers from both parties had proposed more than 80 bills since 2010 with varying levels of restrictions on cellphone use and driving. Similar legislation has been proposed in Montana, too. In both states, such bills have faltered, largely because Republican opponents say they don’t think the laws work and are just another infringement on people’s civil liberties.

Nevertheless, Missouri Republicans and Democrats introduced at least seven bills this session concerning hand-held phone use while driving — and road safety advocates think such legislation has a better chance of passing this year. Montana, meanwhile, has a bill seeking to block localities’ distracted driving laws.

….

Supporters of hands-free driving laws concede that distracted driving restrictions are not a panacea for all traffic fatalities. And even if Missouri passes additional restrictions on cellphone use, small nuances in wording could influence whether such a law is effective.

Nationwide, about 3,000 people typically die in distracted driving crashes each year, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, though researchers suggest that’s an undercount. While hands-free options are now standard for new vehicles, the number of distracted driving deaths has stayed relatively steady. They represented at least 1 in 12 traffic fatalities in 2020.

Distracted driving laws reduce fatalities — if, like the ones established in 24 states, they ban all hand-held cellphone use rather than banning only a specific activity such as texting, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association and a study published in 2021 in the journal Epidemiology. Banning texting alone does not make a difference, those researchers found.

Oregon and Washington saw significant reductions in the rates of monthly rear-end crashes when they broadened their laws to prohibit “holding” a cellphone as compared with states that banned only texting, according to a study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Those two states also prohibited holding a phone when stopped temporarily — say, at a red light.

Author(s): Eric Berger

Publication Date: 6 Feb 2023

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on “An Enduring Legacy: The Role of Financial Institutions in the Horrors of Slavery and the Need for Atonement, Part Two”

Link: https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hhrg-117-ba09-wstate-darityw-20221207.pdf

Testimony for this hearing: https://financialservices.house.gov/events/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=409969

Excerpt:

The collective amount required to close the disparity for approximately 40 million black American
descendants of persons enslaved in the United States will come to at least $14 trillion. This is a sum that
cannot be met reasonably by private donors or other levels of government. If generous donors created a
fund to eliminate the racial wealth gap by contributing $1 billion monthly, it would take a millennium to
reach $14 trillion. The combined budgets of all state and local governments used to meet all of their
obligations amount to less than $5 trillion.

Financial institutions were key supporters and beneficiaries of American slavery. The full scope of
creditor-debtor relationships interlocked with the slave plantation system has yet to be documented
adequately. For the record details are needed about which organizations were the financiers for the
New England textile industry, which bank or banks had Brooks Brothers, producers of “plantation wear”
for both the enslaved and the enslavers, as a client, and who were the lenders to the southern planters
themselves. This will require thick archival research that has yet to be undertaken.


It is now well established that a number of existing insurance companies participated significantly in
providing slaveowners with contracts to protect them for financial loss in the event of death or damage
of their human property, particularly their highly skilled property These include New York Life, known as
the Nautilus Insurance Company in the antebellum period, Aetna, Baltimore Life, Southern Mutual
Insurance Company, the Loews Corporation, and AIG.


Lloyd’s of London and RSA Insurance Group the point before the overseas slave trade was declared
illegal, insurance companies routinely protected voyages to procure captive Africans. British insurers
figured prominently, especially Lloyd’s of London and the RSA Insurance Group , in the form of one of its
ancestor business, London Assurance.

….

During the course of approximately 100 white terrorist assaults on black communities from the Civil War
to the 1940s, black lives were taken and black owned property was seized or destroyed by the white
mobsters. Black property owners who lived through the massacres rarely received any form of
compensation, particularly from insurance companies with whom they held policies.


An estimated present value of $611 million dollars of black-owned property was lost during the 1921
Tulsa massacre. What can best be described as a “Negro clause” in the policies gave insurance
companies the basis for denying the massacre victims’ claims. The “…insurance companies fell back on
an exclusionary clause…that…said insurers wouldn’t be held liable for loss ‘caused directly or indirectly
by invasion, insurrection, riot, civil or commotion, or military or usurped power’” (Council 2021).

Author(s): William Darity Jr., the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, Economics, and Business at Duke University

Publication Date: 7 Dec 2022

Publication Site: House of Representatives, Financial Services Committee

Teslas running Autopilot involved in 273 crashes reported since last year

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/15/tesla-autopilot-crashes/

Excerpt:

Tesla vehicles running its Autopilot software have been involved in 273 reported crashes over roughly the past year, according to regulators, far more than previously known and providing concrete evidence regarding the real-world performance of its futuristic features.

The numbers, which were published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the first time Wednesday, show that Tesla vehicles made up nearly 70 percent of the 392 crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems reported since last July, and a majority of the fatalities and serious injuries — some of which date back further than a year. Eight of the Tesla crashes took place before June 2021, according to data released by NHTSA on Wednesday morning.

Previously, NHTSA said it had probed 42 crashes potentially involving driver assistance, 35 of which included Tesla vehicles, in a more limited data set that stretched back to 2016.

Of the six fatalities listed in the data set published Wednesday, five were tied to Tesla vehicles — including a July 2021 crash involving a pedestrian in Flushing, Queens, and a fatal crash in March in Castro Valley, Calif. Some dated as far back as 2019.

Author(s): Faiz Siddiqui, Rachel Lerman and Jeremy B. Merrill

Publication Date: 15 Jun 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post

NHTSA Releases Initial Data on Safety Performance of Advanced Vehicle Technologies

Link: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/initial-data-release-advanced-vehicle-technologies

Report for Level 2 ADAS: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2022-06/ADAS-L2-SGO-Report-June-2022.pdf

Report for Levels 3-5: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2022-06/ADS-SGO-Report-June-2022.pdf

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Today, as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s efforts to increase roadway safety and encourage innovation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the initial round of data it has collected through its Standing General Order issued last year and initial accompanying reports summarizing this data.

The SAE Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems summary report is available here, while the SAE Levels 3-5 automated driving systems summary report is available here. Going forward, NHTSA will release data updates monthly.

These data reflect a set of crashes that automakers and operators reported to NHTSA from the time the Standing General Order was issued last June. While not comprehensive, the data are important and provide NHTSA with immediate information about crashes that occur with vehicles that have various levels of automated systems deployed at least 30 seconds before the crash occurred.

“The data released today are part of our commitment to transparency, accountability and public safety,” said Dr. Steven Cliff, NHTSA’s Administrator. “New vehicle technologies have the potential to help prevent crashes, reduce crash severity and save lives, and the Department is interested in fostering technologies that are proven to do so; collecting this data is an important step in that effort. As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world.”

Publication Date: 15 June 2022

Publication Site: NHTSA

Geico ordered to pay $5.2M to woman who got HPV in a car

Link: https://www.autoblog.com/2022/06/08/insurance-company-payout-hpv-car-sex/

Excerpt:

Per The Kansas City Star, the woman initiated a claim with Geico in February 2021 after learning that she’d contracted the sexually transmitted infection from a partner who knew but did not disclose his status. Since the incident in question happened in her partner’s car, she argued that his liability insurance was responsible for damages. A settlement was reportedly offered to Geico, whose lawyers declined. As anybody who’s had legal entanglements with an insurance company can probably guess, the case went to arbitration.

In what we’re certain was a surprise to Geico’s legal team, arbitration did not go their way. The woman’s partner was found liable and the arbitrator approved an award of $5.2 million in damages to be paid out by the insurer despite requests by Geico for a new hearing. The insurance company appealed to the courts on several grounds, claiming that the process denied it the ability to have its day in court. The company’s appeal was denied on all points.

Author(s): Byron Hurd

Publication Date: 8 June 2022

Publication Site: Autoblog

Jerry Theodorou Presents on Social Inflation to the Business Insurance World Captive Forum

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahkUnXje1A

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R Street Institute Director of Finance, Insurance and Trade Jerry Theodorou presents on social inflation and his latest policy study to the Business Insurance World Captive Forum in Miami in February.

Author(s): Jerry Theodorou

Publication Date: 23 Feb 2022

Publication Site: YouTube and R Street Institute

THE SCOURGE OF SOCIAL INFLATION

Link:https://www.rstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/RSTREET247.pdf

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If unchecked, social inflation, driven by the myriad factors discussed in this study, will become a self-perpetuating phenomenon that sends improper signals regarding the value of damages to jurors, judges and defendants. This will lead to higher insurance premiums, financial strain on insurers, depletion of municipal resources and disincentives for businesses to take risks. This hidden “tort tax” benefits no one except plaintiff attorneys and their clients who engage in practices that lead to social inflation.

There are two broad responses that need to be pursued to combat the perpetuation of social inflationary pressures. One is to influence the development of public policy at the state and federal levels to reveal and control excesses. The second is for insurers and defense counsel to adopt and deploy more aggressive strategies that push back and formally object to tactics violating existing norms of courtroom behavior.

Author(s): Jerry Theodorou

Publication Date: December 2021

Publication Site: R Street

When Will The FDA Approve Paxlovid?

Link: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/when-will-the-fda-approve-paxlovid

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For context: a recent study by Pfizer, the pharma company backing the drug, found Paxlovid decreased hospitalizations and deaths from COVID by a factor of ten, with no detectable side effects. It was so good that Pfizer, “in consultation with” the FDA, stopped the trial early because it would be unethical to continue denying Paxlovid to the control group. And on November 16, Pfizer officially submitted an approval request to the FDA, which the FDA is still considering.

As many people including ZviAlex, and Kelsey have noted, it’s pretty weird that the FDA agrees Paxlovid is so great that it’s unethical to study it further because it would be unconscionable to design a study with a no-Paxlovid control group – but also, the FDA has not approved Paxlovid, it remains illegal, and nobody is allowed to use it.

One would hope this is because the FDA plans to approve Paxlovid immediately. But the prediction market expects it to take six weeks – during which time we expect about 50,000 more Americans to die of COVID.

Perhaps there’s not enough evidence for the FDA to be sure Paxlovid works yet? But then why did they agree to stop the trial that was gathering the evidence? Or perhaps there’s enough evidence, but it takes a long time to process it? But then how come the prediction markets are already 90% sure what decision they’ll make?

Author(s): Scott Alexander

Publication Date: 22 Nov 2021

Publication Site: Astral Codex Ten

The Cost of Insuring Colleges Continues to Rise. And Covid’s Not the Reason.

Link: https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-cost-of-insuring-colleges-continues-to-rise-and-covids-not-the-reason?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in

Excerpt:

Colleges face an increasingly complex and unpredictable array of challenges — abuse, harassment, assault, police misconduct, accidents, health and environmental hazards, fiduciary wrongdoing, the pandemic — that are making it more difficult to calculate risk and insure against it.

That’s a big part of why annual insurance premiums have gone up by double digits in recent years. John McLaughlin, senior managing director of the higher-education practice at Gallagher, an insurance brokerage and risk-management and consulting firm, says those increases range between an average of 10 and 35 percent across an institution’s insurance portfolio.

….

But what’s striking is that just behind enrollment on colleges’ list of worries are two areas that are not directly related to Covid: data security and Title IX. That’s according to an annual survey by United Educators, which provides liability insurance and risk-management services for its member colleges and schools. The survey was conducted from May 2019 through September 2020, as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, and 480 United Educators member institutions responded.

Author(s): Alexander C. Kafka

Publication Date: 3 March 2021

Publication Site: Chronicle of Higher Education