Posted by Benji Riggins on May 18, 2012 under Interesting Info | 
The 2012 hurricane season might get an early start, with the possibility of a tropical depression or storm in the western Caribbean some time next week, according to a cutting-edge forecast Tuesday by federal scientists.
The Climate Prediction Center predicted moderate chances that a tropical depression or a storm will form in the Caribbean during the last week of May.
Even if no storm develops, the prediction signals that the Atlantic is becoming primed for tropical activity as June 1, the official start of the six-month hurricane season, nears.
“It’s something to pay attention to. It might be a little earlier than normal,” said Eric Blake, a specialist with the National Hurricane Center.
While the two-week tropical hazard forecasts by the Climate Prediction Center are not very accurate now, meteorologists there are working with the National Hurricane Center to improve them. Within a few years, the two agencies plan to start making a joint two-week forecast, with the hurricane center taking the lead on the first week and the climate center handling the second, said Blake, who gave a presentation about the project at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference here on Tuesday.
He said the hurricane center began working with the climate center on the two-week outlook shortly after the busy 2005 hurricane season.
“The challenge has really been eliminating the false alarms,” Blake said.
The two-week outlook mostly relies on thunderstorm activity around the global tropics to predict where chances are increased for a tropical storm or depression to form. Clusters of thunderstorms occasionally move around the globe in a weather pattern called the Madden-Julian Oscillation or MJO. When the thunderstorms are over the Caribbean and Africa, the chances for tropical storms to develop in the Atlantic increase, Blake said.
But because weather is so variable, forecasts that extend beyond a week tend to have a large margin of error. The five-day forecast for tropical activity, however, is getting much better.
Blake said the hurricane center will experiment this year, in-house, with predicting the formation of tropical storms five days in advance. If the forecasts pan out, weather buffs, fishermen, shipping businesses, emergency planners and those in the oil and gas extraction industries could benefit from those forecasts beginning next year.
By Kate Spinner
Posted by Benji Riggins on March 29, 2012 under Insurance News, Uncategorized |
Chances are next year will be another active hurricane season in the Atlantic if an El Niño does not develop, say forecasters at Colorado State University.
The forecast team of Philip Klotzbach and William Gray released its early hurricane season forecast for 2012, saying that it is dispensing with the usual numerical forecast for the number of storms. Instead, Klotzbach and Gray issued their forecast in terms of the probabilities “of the key factors influencing the hurricane season.”
The reason for the change, they say, is the difficulty forecasters have in determining whether an El Niño will occur in the Pacific, which impacts the Atlantic hurricane season.
The team says there is a 45 percent chance that climate conditions that have persisted since 1995 will continue along with no El Niño development in the Pacific. These conditions include warmer water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and reduced vertical wind shear—conducive conditions for hurricane formation.
Should that be the case, hurricane activity would be 140 percent of the average season, which would be characterized as 12 to 15 named storms, seven to nine hurricanes and up to four major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5 with sustained winds of 111 mph and greater), the forecasters say.
The team says there is a 30 percent chance that Atlantic wind circulation remains unchanged and a significant El Niño occurs, which would reduce the tropical-cyclone season to approximately 75 percent of the average season. That would be 8 to 11 named storms, three to five hurricanes and one or two major hurricanes.
There is a 15 percent chance that current Atlantic wind conditions could become unusually strong, and no El Niño occurs, which would lead tropical-cyclone activity of up to 180 percent of average hurricane season—about 14 to 17 storms, 9 to 11 hurricanes and four to five major hurricanes.
And the forecasters say there is a 10 percent chance that current Atlantic wind conditions weaken and a significant El Niño develops, which would reduce the tropical-cyclone activity to 40 percent of the average season—five to seven storms, two to three hurricanes and possibly one major hurricane.
For 2011, the CSU forecast team had predicted that the hurricane season would be well above average. In June the team called for 16 named storms, nine hurricanes and five major hurricanes. The season produced 19 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
By Mark E. Ruquet, PropertyCasualty360.com
Posted by Benji Riggins on March 10, 2012 under Insurance News |
A cash-strapped businessman torches his home then massacres five people to keep witnesses from testifying. A cop shoots himself to steal workers’ comp money. Two scammers stuff a coffin with a mannequin and cow parts to invent a dead person for a million-dollar life-insurance payout.
These are among the extreme schemers elected to the Insurance Fraud Hall of Shame sponsored by the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.
The Hall of Shame annually dishonors the year’s most brazen, vicious or plain klutzy convicted insurance criminals. The Hall of Shame helps brand insurance fraud as a socially offensive crime by detailing true-life cases, and the damage caused by these masters of disaster.
Witness the No-Class of 2011:
Executed scheme. Dogged by debt, William Craig Miller burned down his fancy Scarsdale, Ariz. house for an insurance payday. Miller then executed two witnesses in their home. He also gunned down three kids in the home to keep them quiet. Some were shot at point plank, including a 10-year-old boy. Miller received the death penalty.
Daffy diamond heist. Financially strapped diamond merchants Atul Shah & Haveer Kankariya staged a dopey $9-million diamond heist for insurance money. They hired two thugs to dress as Hassidic Jews in beards and black-brimmed hats, then pretend to rob their Manhattan business. But the merchants’ own security cameras recorded them removing the diamonds themselves. The merchants both received up to four years in prison.
Policing fraud. Los Angeles cop Jeff Stenroos said a man shot him in his protective vest. Hundreds of police were diverted to hunt for the phantom shooter. Thousands of kids were locked in their schools for hours without food, water or toilets. Traffic was snarled. Stenroos had faked a painful injury to score paid time off via his workers comp policy. He received four years in jail.
Explosive con. Stuck with a decaying home they couldn’t sell Victor & Olga Barriere hired Thomas Trucios to burn down the Long Beach, Calif. place. But Trucios was an amateur who used too much gasoline. The toxic brew exploded. Flames engulfed Trucios, blew up the house and carved large cracks in the sidewalk. Trucios died from third-degree burns. Victor received 14 years and Olga six years.
Stormy scheme. Lori Sergiacomi was popular Providence, R.I. deejay called “Tanya Cruise,” Sergiacomi had two corrupt politicos bang up her home roof, pool and interior to look like storm damage so insurance would pay for her home remodeling. A crooked adjuster helped grease the claim. But just her luck, one politico spilled the entire scheme while being wiretapped in yet another corruption con. Sergiacomi received four months in a halfway house. Her cronies received varied sentences.
Cow parts & mannequins. Jean Crump and Faye Shilling took out life insurance on Jim Davis, a fake person they invented. “Davis” later died of a heart attack, the Los Angeles duo said. Crump and Shilling staged his funeral, with fake mourners and a burial. Then they dug up the empty coffin when the life insurer got nosey. They filled it with the mannequin and cow parts to fool workers lugging the box to the crematorium to erase the evidence. Crump awaits sentencing, and Shilling received two years in federal prison.
Bad medicine. Armen Karazianis headed an Armenian-American gang that bilked Medicare out of $163 million in one of the largest Medicare scams ever by one criminal gang. The Los Angeles-area man set up 118 fake medical clinics in 25 states, and stole the identities of doctors and Medicare beneficiaries. Karazianis also recruited Medicare patients for bogus treatments, and staged crashes for false injury claims. Karazianis received three years in federal prison.
Blind to honesty. Kevin Pushia was a Baltimore pastor who befriended a blind, developmentally disabled man named Lemuel Wallace. Pushia secretly took out $1.4 million of life insurance on Wallace, then had him shot in a park bathroom. Pushia even stole $50,000 from his own church to pay the hitmen. He also tellingly scrawled “L.W. project completed” in his datebook. Pushia earned life in prison.
Fake FBI agent. Bridget Buckner told her employer that her child and husband died suddenly just months apart, the Chicago woman said. She collected $25,000 in life coverage. Her husband was an FBI agent shot in his lung while on duty, she said. Poor guy died awaiting surgery. But the fraud investigator himself was a retired FBI agent who would’ve heard about the death. Buckner’s innocent hubby wasn’t an agent, and her daughter had died several years prior. A spooked Buckner disappeared but was hauled back for a 10-year jail term.
Tags: auto ins, automobile ins, car ins, home ins, homeowner ins, homeowners ins, house ins, ins fraud, insurance agency, insurance agent, insurance fraud, vehicle ins
Posted by Benji Riggins on March 8, 2012 under Interesting Info |
There were 81 on-duty firefighter fatalities in the United States as a result of incidents that occurred in 2011, a decrease from the 87 fatalities reported for 2010.
The 81 fatalities occurred in 33 states, one U.S. territory, and one overseas U.S. military facility, according to the United States Fire Administration (USFA).
Texas experienced the highest number of fatalities (seven). North Carolina experienced six firefighter deaths and was the only other state with five or more firefighter fatalities.
Heart attacks were responsible for the deaths of 48 firefighters (59 percent) in 2011, nearly the same proportion of firefighter deaths from heart attack or stroke (60 percent) in 2010.
Ten on-duty firefighters died in association with wildland fires, the lowest number of annual firefighter deaths associated with wildland fires since 1996.
Fifty-four percent of all firefighter fatalities occurred while performing emergency duties. Only three firefighters were killed in vehicle collisions.
Posted by Benji Riggins on February 28, 2012 under Insurance News |
North Carolina’s third largest homeowners insurer is looking to reduce its exposure in the state by increasing rates and rolling back its policyholder numbers, citing steep increases in reinsurance costs.
The North Carolina Farm Bureau Insurance Co. announced it will implement a statewide average 6 percent increase in premiums on the 380,000 homeowners it insures around the state.
Although homeowners’ rates are capped by the state, the insurer said the increases will come in the form of eliminated policyholder discounts and credits. The insurer is seeking to implement similar changes on its mobile home and farm properties policies.
In January, the insurer imposed new underwriting guidelines that require homeowners to purchase an auto policy in order to maintain their coverage. It also decided to non-renew homeowners who had filed a claim on their property in the last five years.
Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Steve Carroll said the moves reflect a steep rise in its reinsurance premiums following last year storms, which resulted in over $50 million in claims. As a result of those losses and changes in the reinsurance market, he said the insurer’s reinsurance costs jumped from $75 billion in 2011 to $150 million this year.
The Raleigh, N.C.-based Farm Bureau is the state’s third largest homeowner insurer, representing 13.9 percent of the market.
One segment of the market Farm Bureau is looking to substantially withdraw from is its dwelling policies. Dwelling policies are generally limited to insuring physical damage on rental and investment properties that not occupied by an owner.
In 2011, the North Carolina Rate Bureau filed for a 30.6 percent rate increase for these policies, which was denied by Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin. Goodwin ordered a 7.3 percent rate deduction. Goodwin’s decision is currently under appeal.
As a result, the insurer will exclude wind coverage on 15,000 dwelling and property policyholders in coastal areas, effective June 1. It also plans to eliminate 43,000 properties in the western region of the state unless the owner has an auto policy. The company will also stop offering any new dwelling policies in non-coastal regions, effect April 1.
By Michael Adams
Posted by Benji Riggins on February 6, 2012 under Safety |
Disasters demonstrate the need for home and business owners to evaluate their risk of damage and take steps to reduce that risk ahead of time.
The record number of natural disasters in the U.S. this year demonstrates the need for home and business owners to evaluate their risk of damage and take steps to reduce that risk ahead of time, says the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).
The federal government has declared 86 major disasters so far in 2011, surpassing the previous annual record of 81 last year. “No matter where you are located, you are at risk for one or more natural hazards that could significantly damage or destroy your home or business,” said Julie Rochman, president & CEO, IBHS. “A complete evaluation of how best to protect your specific property starts with knowing and understanding the type(s) of risks that may affect your area.”
To that end, IBHS provides a free ZIP Code-based tool on their public website at www.disastersafety.org. When a property owner enters their ZIP Code, a list of natural hazards common to the area is shown.
Once a property owner has identified the risks they may face, the next step is to determine their home or commercial building’s specific vulnerability. Then, they can use IBHS guidance to learn how to reduce the risk of damage or destruction. “There are many strategies a home or business owner can employ to prevent or greatly lessen the risk of property damage due to a natural disaster,” Rochman said. “Some of these protections come at a cost, but many of them are low- or no-cost options that require nothing more than a bit of effort on the part of the property owner.”
For example, to reduce a property’s vulnerability to wildfire, firewood and other highly combustible materials should not be located close to a home or business. This no-cost solution involves moving firewood and leftover building materials, as well as items such as wheelbarrows containing these materials, at least 30 feet from any structure.
Another example is to inspect the exterior walls of your property for gaps around pipes where they enter the walls. Also check for any gaps around electrical outlet boxes, junction boxes, circuit breaker boxes, disconnect switches and electric meters. Seal any gaps found with waterproof caulk. This will help prevent wind-driven water, such as the heavy rains that often accompany hurricanes and thunderstorms – as well as winter sleet and snow – from entering your building.
“These are just two examples of many low- or no-cost ways to reduce the risk of disaster-related property damage,” Rochman said. “IBHS’ website – www.disastersafety.org – provides home and business owners with free, step-by-step instructions and information on dozens of projects that will help your protect property.”
To arrange an interview with IBHS, contact Joseph King at 813-675-1045/813-442-2845, jking@ibhs.org or via direct message on Twitter @jsalking.
