Mild winter leads to more car-animal collisions

The mild winter led to at least one unexpected consequence: many more costly collisions between cars and wildlife on American roads. Insurer Chubb Corp received 35 percent more claims for car-animal collisions in the first three months of 2012 than it did for all of 2011, the company said on Wednesday. If those figures hold across the industry, they would mark a sharp reversal. State Farm, the country’s largest auto insurer, has reported a decline in car-deer incidents for three years running, through last summer.