Nearly half of the 7,993 cases of suspected fraud reported during the period were connected to vehicles, with cases ranging from deliberately damaged car windows to staged accidents.

According to Joe Wehrle, president of the group, the increase was less than the 20 percent rise during the same period last year, but dubious claims remain a top concern.

Criminals “try to take advantage of the insurance company’s desire to pay claims as quickly and efficiently as possible,” he said.

The increase in suspect claims coincides with a decline in U.S. payrolls, while the jobless rate sits at a 26-year high of 10.1 percent after increasing 8.6 percent during the past two years.

More than five times as many car windows appear to have been smashed on purpose in order to generate insurance payouts, rising from 239 last year to 1,498 in 2010. Meanwhile, suspected bogus vehicle accidents increased 27 percent year-over-year.

The study found that 47 percent of all adults who text have done so while driving, compared with 34 percent of teens (aged 16 to 17) who text.

Additionally, 74 percent of adults who own cell phones have talked while driving, while 52 percent of teens with phones have done so.

To further highlight the distractions presented by cell phones, the study also found that 17 percent of adults said they have physically run into another person or object while talking or texting on the phone.

Currently, 28 states and Washington D.C. prohibit texting while driving, and seven states and Washington D.C. ban cell phone use while driving.

Preliminary 2009 statistics indicate that violent crime in the nation decreased 5.5 percent and property crime declined 4.9 percent when compared with data from 2008. Data in the report came from 13,237 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 months of data in both 2008 and 2009.

Highlights from the report include:

Property Crime

• All property crime offenses—burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft—decreased in 2009 when compared with 2008 data. Motor vehicle theft showed the largest drop in volume at 17.2 percent, larceny-thefts declined 4.2 percent, and burglaries decreased 1.7 percent.

• The nation’s largest cities, one million or more inhabitants, reported the greatest decrease, 7.9 percent, in property crime overall. Of the city groupings, this population group also reported the biggest decreases in the offenses that comprise property crime: a 21.1 percent drop in motor vehicle theft, a 5.7 percent decline in burglary, and a 5.5 percent decrease in larceny-theft. In the nation’s nonmetropolitan counties, larceny-thefts fell 9.5 percent; in metropolitan counties, larceny-thefts declined 5.9 percent.

• The only population group to indicate a rise in any type of property crime was in nonmetropolitan counties, where burglary rose 0.5 percent.

• In comparing 2008 data and 2009 data by region, law enforcement agencies in the West reported the biggest decline in property crime, with a decrease of 6.8 percent. Property crime declined 5.6 percent in the Midwest, 5.3 percent in the Northeast, and 3.2 percent in the South.

Arson

• Arson offenses, which are tracked separately from other property crimes, declined 10.4 percent nationwide. All population groups reported decreases in the volume of arson offenses. In addition, arson fell in all four of the nation’s regions: 11.6 percent in the West, 10.6 percent in the South, 9.2 percent in the Midwest, and 8.6 percent in the Northeast.

Violent Crime

• All four violent crime offenses — murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—declined nationwide in 2009 when compared with 2008 data. Robbery dropped 8.1 percent, murder decreased 7.2 percent, aggravated assault declined 4.2 percent, and forcible rape decreased 3.1 percent.

• Violent crime fell in all city groupings. The largest decrease, 7.5 percent, was in cities with populations ranging from 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants. Violent crime declined 4.0 percent in the nation’s metropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in nonmetropolitan counties.

• Cities with 25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants were the only city population group to report an increase in the number of murders, 5.3 percent. The number of murders in the nation’s nonmetropolitan counties also rose, 1.8 percent.

• Forcible rape trends dropped in all city population groups. The largest decrease was 7.3 percent in cities of less than 10,000 residents. Metropolitan counties reported a 3.7 percent decline in the number of rapes, but the number of rapes reported in nonmetropolitan counties rose slightly, 0.3 percent.

• All population groups reported decreases in the volume of robbery in 2009. Of the city groups, cities with populations of 100,000 to 249,999 had the largest decrease at 10.3 percent. Metropolitan counties reported a 6.7 percent drop in robberies; nonmetropolitan counties reported a 0.7 percent decline.

• The number of aggravated assaults declined in all population groups, with cities of 500,000 to 999,999 inhabitants reporting a 6.3 percent decrease. Aggravated assaults declined 3.7 percent in nonmetropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in metropolitan counties.

• All four regions in the nation showed decreases in violent crime in 2009 when compared with data from 2008. Violent crime decreased 6.6 percent in the South, 5.6 percent in the West, 4.6 percent in the Midwest, and 3.5 percent in the Northeast.

Source: FBI
Read more: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/05/25/110166.htm#ixzz0p305rcFX

Crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show that the mix of low-speed vehicles (LSVs) or minitrucks and regular traffic is a deadly combination.

LSVs are designed for tooling around residential neighborhoods, and minitrucks are for hauling cargo off-road. While these vehicles have a lot of appeal as a way to reduce emissions and cut fuel use, they don’t have to meet the basic safety standards that cars and pickups do, and they aren’t designed to protect their occupants in crashes, researchers note.

“By allowing LSVs and minitrucks on more and more kinds of roads, states are carving out exceptions to 40 years of auto safety regulations that save lives,” says David Zuby, the Institute’s chief research officer. “It’s a troubling trend that flies in the face of the work insurers, automakers, and the federal government have done to reduce crash risk.”

Practically every state allows LSVs, also called neighborhood electric vehicles, on certain roads, mostly with 35 mph or lower speed limits. Eight years ago just over a dozen states permitted them but now 46 do.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines appropriate performance and safety standards but has no say in where LSVs are driven. The same goes for minitrucks, which are legal to operate on some roads in 16 states, even though they weren’t designed to meet U.S. safety or emission standards. The trend to grant minitrucks access to regular roads began in 2007 and is growing at a quick pace.

“On one hand you have NHTSA saying these vehicles were meant for low-risk, controlled environments or farm use, and on the other hand states are pushing them out onto the highways,” Zuby points out.

LSVs were envisioned as a low-cost, eco-friendly way to tool around gated communities in the Sun Belt where they would have little interaction with larger vehicles. NHTSA doesn’t require LSVs to have airbags or other safety features beyond belts since they’re intended for low-risk driving. Most minitrucks in the United States are used right-hand-drive vehicles imported from Japan, where they can operate on roads as long as they pass inspection every 2 years. Vehicles that fail often end up exported to North America. Also known as Kei-class vehicles, minitrucks are smaller than conventional pickups and weigh about 1,500 pounds. They must be imported with governors to limit speeds to 25 mph or less to be exempt from Clean Air Act provisions but can go much faster.

NHTSA in 1998 established safety standards for LSVs to be used on “short trips for shopping, social, and recreational purposes primarily within retirement or other planned communities with golf courses.” They must be able to go at least 20 mph but no faster than 25 mph. Basic features are required: headlights, taillights, stoplights, turn signals, reflectors, parking brakes, rearview mirrors, windshields, safety belts, and vehicle identification numbers.

Minitrucks weren’t an issue when NHTSA wrote LSV rules. The agency in 2006 amended the standards to include vehicles with gross vehicle weight ratings up to 3,000 pounds, and now 4 states require minitrucks to meet LSV standards. Still, NHTSA believes minitrucks should keep off the road. In a July 2009 letter of interpretation, the agency said that because “these vehicles are not manufactured to meet U.S. safety standards, NHTSA cannot endorse their use on public highways.”

The Energy Department estimates there are 45,000 LSVs on U.S. roads. New LSVs qualify for up to a $2,500 tax credit under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Many states also offer tax incentives.

“Lost amid the talk about so-called sustainable transportation is any regard for the safety of people who ride in LSVs and minitrucks,” Zuby says. “We’re all for green vehicles that don’t trade safety for fuel efficiency.”

For eco-minded consumers, a better choice for regular traffic is a crashworthy hybrid like the Toyota Prius or another fuel-efficient car. Also worth a look are the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt, two battery-powered cars slated for delivery later this year, researchers say.

Crash Tests
To show that LSVs and minitrucks are no match for even the smallest of regular cars and pickups, Institute researchers tested two GEM e2 electric vehicles and a Changan Tiger Star minitruck. The GEMs were in side tests, one using a moving deformable barrier and the other using a Smart Fortwo as the striking vehicle. The Smart is the smallest passenger vehicle on US roads that meets crashworthiness standards. The Tiger struck a Ford Ranger XL regular cab pickup in a frontal offset test. The Ranger is one of the least pricey small pickups on the market. It earns an acceptable rating in the Institute’s frontal crashworthiness test, the lowest rating in its vehicle class.

The test dummies in the GEMs and the Tiger recorded indications of seriously debilitating or fatal injury to drivers in real-world crashes. In contrast, the Smart performed well and the Ranger reasonably so in similar crash tests.

“There’s a world of difference between vehicles that meet crashworthiness standards and those that don’t,” Zuby says. “It may be time for Congress to step in to extend federal passenger vehicle safety standards to LSVs or else restrict them to the low-risk traffic environments they were designed to navigate.”

Read more: http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2010/05/20/110034.htm#ixzz0oVAahTGf

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, seven states currently ban driving while talking on a hand-held cell phone. The use of all cell phones by novice drivers is restricted in 21 states and the District of Columbia.

Text messaging is banned for all drivers in 19 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, novice drivers are banned from texting in nine states.

Meanwhile, Florida, Kentucky and Alabama are among the states weighing their own bans.

Nearly one out of five U.S. drivers surveyed has read or sent a text message while behind the wheel, according to a recent AAA survey – even though they consider such action unacceptable.

The AAA, the National Safety Council and most safety advocates have urged texting bans for drivers in all 50 states.

But recently an insurance industry study questioned whether these state laws are worth enacting.

The Highway Loss Data Institute study found that claims rates did not go down after the laws were enacted. It also found no change in patterns compared with nearby states without such bans.

HLDI is a respected research group but its results in this study seem to defy everyday experience, common sense and human psychology.

HLDI itself said its findings “don’t match what we already know about the risk of phoning and texting while driving” and it is gathering data to “figure out this mismatch.” One explanation could be an increase in the use of hands-free devices in places with bans on handset use while driving.

Dr. Amit Almor, a psychology researcher at the University of South Carolina, says language and driving are complex activities that tax the brain in many ways. Almor completed two studies in 2008 and 2009 that looked at the demands on the brain when talking on cell phones while driving. Texting adds another layer of language and motor skills, which Almor warns can make for a lethal combination.

“Verbal communication is a complex combination of listening, thought generating and talking. Driving involves assessment and decision-making and an array of motor skills,” Almor says. “Talking on a cell phone while driving is distracting and dangerous. Texting is far worse, as it adds another motor skill and keeps the driver in a different mental space for a much longer period of time.”

Adrian Lund, HLDI president, said the group’s finding doesn’t bode well “for any safety payoff from all the new laws.”

The National Governors Association said the HLDI study “raises as many questions as it answers” and is urging states to pass texting bans, but hold off on banning other cell phone use while driving until there is more data.

Follow-up research should be put on a fast track. States do not need more laws that don’t work but they also shouldn’t let one study keep them from their safety mission. Isn’t it always better to be safe than sorry?

By Andrew G. Simpson

Bernie Fette, one of the study’s authors said, “Everything points in the same direction for this age group, and that is to the use of cell phones behind the wheel. Whenever you combine the nighttime danger and the cell phone dangers with inexperience, you have created a perfect storm.”

The study used federal traffic data from 1999 to 2008, a period in which the overall number of traffic deaths declined nationwide.

The study found that among drivers aged 20 and older, alcohol was a major factor in the proportional increase in nighttime deaths, but with teen drivers, no corresponding jump in deaths could be attributed to drunken driving.

Studies show that teenagers tend to underestimate the dangers of cell phone use, and are often unaware that nightfall increases risk posed by their inexperience and fatigue.

The study found that nighttime driving poses the number one risk for fatalities among teenage drivers, followed by speed, distractions, failure to wear a seat belt and the use of alcohol.

A new study from the Insurance Research Council (IRC) estimates that for bodily injury (BI) liability claims in 38 tort and add-on states, cost shifting in 2007 resulted in $1.2 billion in excess hospital charges.

However, the study says, the full impact of hospital cost shifting, including that occurring in other insurance coverages and in other states, is likely much greater.

“The conventional wisdom is that hospitals aggressively seek to shift costs from public insurance programs to private payers such as auto insurance companies,” said Elizabeth Sprinkel, senior vice president of the IRC. “With this study, we now have information on the magnitude of cost shifting and a better understanding of the need for supportive state laws and effective tools that will enable auto insurers to pay hospitals appropriately and help control auto injury claim costs.”

Spronkel said hospital cost shifting to auto injury claims illustrates the complex relationship between property/casualty insurance and the broader healthcare and insurance system.

“Healthcare legislation enacted by Congress last month underscores the complexity of this relationship,” said Sprinkel. “It will take months, if not years, to understand the full impact of the reforms on hospital cost shifting and the auto insurance system.”

To explore the relationship between key health system features and auto injury hospital costs, IRC developed a statistical model of average hospital charges for auto injury claims in different states. Key predictors of average hospital charges confirmed by the model are the percentage of a state’s population without health insurance coverage and the percentage of the population covered by Medicaid.

To estimate excess hospital charges due to hospital cost shifting, IRC compared average hospital charges for BI liability claims in Maryland with average charges in 38 other tort and add-on states. In the 1970s, Maryland received a waiver from the federal government allowing it to regulate hospital reimbursement rates for all purchasers of hospital services. As a result, virtually all hospital cost shifting in the state was eliminated. IRC said that Maryland’s unique approach to hospital reimbursement, while unlikely to be replicated in other states, provided an opportunity to examine costs in an environment with minimal cost shifting.

In all instances, IRC found that average hospital charges for auto injury claims in Maryland were substantially lower than hospital charges in most other states.

IRC also found that the costs of expensive diagnostic procedures performed in Maryland hospitals were much lower than in other states but were more similar to costs in other states when the procedures were performed outside a hospital.

The IRC study, Hospital Cost Shifting and Auto Injury Insurance Claims, is based on data from more than 42,000 auto injury claims closed with payment under the five principal private passenger coverages. Twenty-two insurers, representing 58 percent of the private passenger auto insurance market in the Unites Sates in 2006, participated in the study.

Source: IRC

North Dakota has the nation’s lowest insurance cost, at $511.79 per year, according to a report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Iowa was second at $517.62 per year, according to the study, which looked at payment levels for all 50 states from 2003 to 2007.

North Carolina is one of the only states to negotiate standardized, across-the-board rates for all companies, depending on territory. The rate set by the insurance commissioner is the cap, and companies writing traditional policies can deviate from that rate only by offering discounts.

Here are the report’s rankings for neighboring states:

•Tennessee: No. 14, at $649.22 annually.

•Virginia: No. 17, at $660.80.

•South Carolina: No. 30, at $761.81.

•Georgia: No. 31, at $781.92.

Charlotte Business Journal – by Lee Weisbecker Triangle Business Journal

A national transportation group released a report this week estimating a driver in North Carolina’s two largest urban areas loses $1,350 a year because of lost time and gasoline costs sitting in traffic, car repairs and accidents where roadway design likely contributed to a wreck.

The study by the Washington-based nonprofit group TRIP, based largely on federal highway and traffic safety data, may reinvigorate the discussion state transportation boosters want to persuade the Legislature to approve new ways to raise road construction funds.

The state estimated years ago it had a $65 billion funding gap through 2030 between projected transportation needs and the current funding sources to pay for them.

“North Carolina is falling behind in maintaining its major roads, bridges and highways and the state lacks adequate funding with numerous projects that would greatly enhance economic development in the state,” TRIP executive director Will Wilkins said.

The $838 million in federal stimulus money for ready-to-build roads and bridges only provides short-term assistance for North Carolina, where population is expected to grow by one-third to 12 million and vehicle travel by 45 percent by 2030.

“The bottom line is our needs are growing in North Carolina. Our revenue stream is not,” state Transportation Secretary Gene Conti said at a Raleigh news conference where he agreed with the findings. “We need to continue to work hard and do more with less, but I don’t think at the end of the day that’s going to get the job done.”

The group TRIP said the costs above and beyond normal driving and maintenance for Charlotte drivers ($1,351 a year) and Raleigh-Durham ($1,350) area drivers are essentially the same, while drivers in Greensboro and Winston-Salem on average face $901 in expenses because there’s less congestion in the Triad.

Statewide, congested and deteriorating roads and those that lack improved safety features cost drivers $5.7 billion, according to the TRIP report. North Carolina has the second largest state-maintained highway system but ranks fourth-lowest in the nation for per-mile capital spending on those roads.

There are more than six million drivers in North Carolina. Wilkins discouraged calculating a statewide driver average because congestion figures were available only in the three metro areas.

Charlotte-area motorists spend 40 hours a year in traffic, compared to 25 hours in 1997. The average rush-hour trip is now 25 percent longer in Charlotte and 17 percent longer in the Raleigh-Durham area compared to a non-rush hour trip, the report said.

The calculation of the three regions is based on the per-driver cost for congestion, additional vehicle costs for driving on poor or mediocre roads and the economic costs of accidents.

A state blue-ribbon transportation commission recommended in 2008 raising the tax on car sales, raising vehicle registration fees and even charging motorists for every mile recorded on a vehicle’s odometer as a way to make up for a state gasoline tax eroding as people drive less and with more fuel-efficient cars.

Lawmakers approved last year the commission’s idea to expand to all 100 counties the option to raise local sales taxes for public transportation projects, but otherwise the “Legislature hasn’t really had the courage to enact many of these suggestions,” said Tom Crosby with the AAA Carolinas Motor Club.

Wilkins urged Congress to reauthorize the law setting out federal transportation funding to provide more road-funding stability, since federal revenues pay for about one-fourth of North Carolina’s road projects.

By Gary D. Robertson
March 26, 2010

The site will include information about the car insurance group’s achievements and goals around efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle; practices intended to drive positive changes in car insurance; charitable activities and contributions by employees, agents, and other partners; the company’s Global Reporting Initiative scorecard and Carbon Disclosure Project report; and information and resources to help site visitors make a difference.

According to Progressive Social Responsibility Manger Wanda Shippy, “We call our social responsibility “Progressive Together” because it reflects our commitment to work with our communities, business partners and customers to create a better future together. We want the site to be a place where people can see what we’re doing and also see ways they can get involved if they choose.”