Insurance Journal - Some insurance agents are urging caution as Missouri lawmakers considered changes to a state-created workers’ compensation firm that has been criticized by the state auditor for taking advantage of a federal tax exemption while spending heavily on perks.Legislation already endorsed by a Senate committee would set up a special panel to study whether the 1993 law creating Missouri Employers Mutual Insurance Co. should be changed. The study represents a go-it-slow approach embraced by the company’s CEO as a better alternative to bills requiring the firm to be spun off as a new, purely private insurer.

myfox8.com - Authorities on Wednesday were focusing on what caused a construction boom crane to crash to the ground at a Manhattan work site, killing one construction worker and seriously injuring another. The dead worker was identified by police as Michael Simmermeyer, 30, of Burlington, N.J. He was pronounced dead following Tuesday’s accident at the No. 7 subway line extension construction site. One other person was hospitalized in serious condition and three people were treated for minor injuries.

wftv.com - Three people are still in the hospital with serious injuries after an experimental aircraft crashed into a DeLand Publix and burst into flames while shoppers were in the store on Monday evening. The plane, described as a single engine experimental aircraft, had just taken off from the DeLand Municipal Airport when it suddenly lost power and crashed into the Publix in the Northgate Shopping Center on International Speedway Boulevard. Overnight, WFTV learned of the five people injured, two have already been released from the hospital.

Herald-Tribune.com - After two very busy hurricane seasons in a row, 2012 is expected to be much quieter, according to forecasters with Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project. Weather patterns since the end of the 2011 hurricane season in November have shifted dramatically, making it less likely that the Atlantic will support the large numbers of storms that 2010 and 2011 brought. The forecast, to be released next week, will predict fewer than 12 Atlantic tropical storms, project scientist Phil Klotzbach said, during the National Hurricane Conference Wednesday.

Business Insurance - Ongoing disaster claims are beginning to affect property/casualty industry loss reserves, New York-based Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. said in an analysis released Friday. KBW said that while the industry’s loss and loss adjustment expense reserves generally were adequate at year-end 2011, reserve deficiencies in recent years may soon offset redundancies from prior years. “In general, we believe reserves for accident years 2004 to 2008 remain redundant and should continue to develop favorably over time, albeit at a declining rate, and accident year 2009 seems adequate,” the investment banking firm said in the analysis.

clickorlando.com - A United States Postal Service mail truck driver is recovering from injuries he suffered after his mail truck caught fire Thursday afternoon in Edgewater. Edgewater Fire Rescue officials said the truck ignited just after 1 p.m. Upon arrival, firefighters found a small local delivery truck fully engulfed in flames, according to a release. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in less than two minutes. The driver received minor injuries while removing all of the mail from the vehicle.

Insurance & Technology - Buzzwords can gain momentum quickly in IT, and the latest technology buzz is around "Big Data." Netflix’s Jeremy Edberg, in an article for InformationWeek (a UBM TechWeb brand), recently defined big data as "the tools and processes of managing and utilizing large datasets." But for insurers looking to build smarter claims organizations, the tools are much more important than the size of the datasets themselves, experts say. "There really is a ton of data in insurance," points out Aaron Fidler, VP at Applied Predictive Technologies, a Washington, D.C.-based provider of analytics software and consulting services.

Insurance Journal - Although everyone is more or less aware that 2011 was a very bad year for losses from natural catastrophes, the figures compiled by Swiss Re evince just how bad they actually were. In its latest sigma study the reinsurer points out that the $370 billion in economic losses were the highest in history. 2011 also holds the record for the highest insured earthquake losses — from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami — at $49 billion. Just for good measure the series of floods that hit Thailand set a new record for insured flood losses at $12 billion.

Business Insurance - After enduring the large catastrophe losses, lower investment income and declining reserve margins that defined 2011, the property/casualty insurance industry is poised for growth in 2012, according to a report issued Thursday by New York-based Moody’s Investors Service Inc. The report, “U.S. P&C Insurers’ Earnings Down in 2011, but Pricing Gains Traction,” says that in spite of the challenges, the industry retains strong credit fundamentals.

Insurance Journal - United Fire Group Inc., headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, announced that it expects its first-quarter results through March to include pre-tax catastrophe losses, net of reinsurance, of approximately $13 million to $16 million. These losses are the result of several powerful storms that spawned multiple tornadoes and tore through Midwestern and Southeastern states in the last week of February, including Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama.