The nation’s largest insurance company has settled out of court with more than a dozen Mississippi policyholders whose lawyers were barred from representing them in lawsuits against the insurer over Hurricane Katrina damage, according to court filings Thursday.

Three hot-air balloons dropped asphalt shingles, lumber, sticks, leaves and pine needles onto a north Alabama landfill, so scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville could gather data needed to improve tornado warnings. The payloads dropped by the balloons were similar to the types of debris thrown into the air by tornados that touch the ground.

The Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-sponsored insurer of last resort, will be nearly its pre-Hurricane Katrina size after responsibility for 30,000 homeowner policies is transferred to private insurers. John Wortman, chief executive of Citizens, said the group plans to offer another round of bidding for private companies to take over policies in Citizens. "

Rumors that California is considering selling the State Compensation Insurance Fund to help close the state budget gap are true, but government officials said the idea has amounted to no more than discussion at this point. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Administration is predicting a budget shortfall of $3.3 billion in the current fiscal year, which will grow to $14.5 billion next year.

A Senate bill to renew the national flood insurance program is expected to reach a final vote this week, but not before lawmakers from Florida and other Gulf Coast states try to rewrite it. As now drafted, the bill does not allow flood insurance customers an option of also buying wind coverage, unlike a version passed by the House of Representatives last year over White House protests that it would be "fiscally irresponsible" to do so.

The management agency that operates a 16-unit apartment complex for senior citizens and people with disabilities that was flooded last week will be recommending that the complex not be repaired, but replaced. Fort Kent Housing Inc., constructed in 1968 on Normand Guy Drive to the rear of the St. Louis Catholic Church on East Main Street, had 5 feet of water in it last week. It was not the first flooding the complex has suffered, but it is the worst yet, said Louis Albert, a Fort Kent real estate agent whose firm manages the complex.

The Florida Legislature adjourned Friday without addressing the hurricane insurance tax. Instead, legislators passed additional regulatory measures that continue the string of insurance legislation enacted in recent years which discourage national companies from expanding their writings in Florida, according to the American Insurance Association (AIA).

Hundreds of evacuees from two towns threatened by a wildfire that has burned 59 homes were allowed to return home Sunday, as firefighters worked to burn any remaining fuel in the fire’s interior and complete containment lines. The 13,680-acre Trigo Fire burning east of the Manzano Mountains was 45% contained Sunday, but still was within a few miles of the towns of Torreon and Tajique.

As the insurance industry moves forward to improve its business performance it must also manage the challenges of a recession. Special challenges for the property/casualty insurance industry in the upcoming year include the inability to meet revenue forecasts, declining operating margins, increase in debt and a decline in market share for certain client segments, according to speakers at a Women’s Network Group session in Sacramento, Calif.

Severe weather including tornadoes, damaging hail and hurricane-force winds have torn through the nation’s midsection in the last 24 hours, affecting residents in eight states and killing at least three people in Arkansas. Hurricane-force winds, hail and heavy rain moved through Missouri leaving hundreds of homes and businesses damaged.

Dozens of minor earthquakes shook Reno, Nevada, on April 27 as a sequence of temblors entered its third month and prompted some frazzled residents to leave their homes. Officials recorded more than 150 aftershocks on the western edge of the city after a magnitude 4.7 quake hit on April 25, the strongest quake in the sequence that began Feb. 28. There were no reports of injuries or widespread damage.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine visited the city of Suffolk to comfort storm victims and to survey the damage caused by severe weather that hit central and southeastern Virginia. The governor walked through neighborhoods where homes were badly damaged and went door to door to talk with victims.

Hurricanes often lift the roofs off buildings and expose them to havoc and damaging conditions, even after the worst of the wind has passed. A local roofer, Virginia Tech faculty members from architecture and engineering, and a graduate student have devised an inexpensive vent that can reduce roof uplift on buildings during high winds, even a hurricane.

Catastrophes caused an estimated $3.35 billion in insured property damage during the fist three months of this year, the Insurance Services Office Inc.’s Property Claim Services unit reported Tuesday.

U.S. Forest Service firefighters have the discretion to determine the best way to fight fires and cannot be sued for negligence for setting a backfire in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley in 2000 to try to stop an advancing blaze, an appeals court has ruled.