In a flawed opinion handed down in Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. v. Merge Healthcare Solutions, the Seventh Circuit ordered an insurance company to pay $3.15 million for attorney fees awarded to the plaintiffs who sued the company’s insured. Some shareholders sued Amicas, Inc. and its officers, who were insured by Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. under a D&O policy. …
Read More The Seventh Circuit Rules that an Insurance Contract’s Exclusion of Any “Multiplied Damages” Does Not Mean the Multiplier Used to Enhance an Award of Attorney Fees

According to South Korea’s financial watchdog, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), consumer complaints filed against financial firms totalled 21,338 in the first quarter of this year, up 14.7% from a year earlier, with insurers being the target of most of the complaints. …
Read More South Korea’s Financial Regulator Encourages Insurers to Protect Consumers

The Chinese government will soon allow insurers to set interest rates on their insurance products. Initially, insurers will be allowed to set their interests rates for traditional insurance products such as health, life and pension products.
Read More Chinese Government Will Soon Allow Insurers to Set Their Own Interest Rates

CIRC has recently circulated a document titled “Consultation paper on the regulation of life insurers using reinsurance to improve solvency positions”, inviting feedback on how the scheme is to be carried out and indicating that it is preparing to allow insurers to use reinsurance as a tool for capital optimisation. …
Read More China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) to Issue Rules for Using Reinsurance as Capital Optimisation Tool

China is due to face financial pressure to preserve and increase the value of its social insurance funds and ensure the sustainability of its policies to cover its aging population, which is growing steadily. In 2010, 178 million people in China were aged 60 years or older, accounting for 13.26% of the total population. The number will likely double by 2030. …
Read More China’s Pressure to Care for Its Elderly

At the Asia Specialty Risks Summit in Singapore on 25 June 2013, Mr Gregor Köhler, CEO & President of Pallas Versicherung AG, the insurance arm of Bayer Group, highlighted the insufficient risk transfer solutions in industrial insurance and warned that as the world’s major industries head towards a consolidation process, industrial insurers need to increase their existing capacities or risk going out of business. …
Read More Survival of Industrial Insurance

Federal securities class action activity has been sluggish through the first half of 2013. According to a recent report by Cornerstone Research and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse (the “Report”), plaintiffs filed only 74 complaints through Q2, a 16% decline from the same 6-month period in 2012.1 …
Read More Federal Securities Class Action Filings Decline through Q2 2013

HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE APPROVES DRAFT OF PERMANENT “DOC FIX”

On July 23, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee approved draft legislation that would reform Medicare’s much-criticized physician payment system. The legislation is scheduled to be considered by the full committee on July 31. The Energy and Commerce Committee posted a video on its website titled, “Bipartisan Voices to #FixSGR.” …
Read More Healthcare Update: House Subcommittee Approves Draft of Permanent “Doc Fix”; CMS Imposes Temporary Moratoria on Home Health Agencies and Ambulance Suppliers and Providers

A Pennsylvania intermediate appellate court recently prescribed new rules relative to the defense of insureds under a reservation of rights. In Babcock & Wilcox Company, et al. v. American Nuclear Insurers, et al., 2013 PA Super. 174, 2013 PA Super. LEXIS 1630, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that when an insurer tenders a defense subject to a reservation, an insured now has the option of rejecting the insurer’s tender, funding its own defense, and settling the case without the insurer’s consent. …
Read More Pennsylvania Appellate Court Establishes New Approach to an Insurer’s Offer of a Defense Under a Reservation of Rights