Author: completebodyneeds

Marshall+Sterling, the large, New York-headquartered insurance brokerage, has expanded its south Florida operations with a new office in Fort Lauderdale, the company announced. The firm, now with 22 locales around the country, already has an office in Wellington, Florida, near West Palm Beach. That will remain the home of Marshall+Sterling’s Equine division. The Fort Lauderdale site, on East Las Olas Boulevard downtown, will become a hub for the brokerage’s property-casualty operations in the region, including its four Virgin Islands offices, the firm said in a news release. The Fort Lauderdale hub will be led by Alison Kallman and Yannick Nicome,…

New Zealand’s flood-prone homes are outperforming the rest of the country’s moribund housing market, as buyers chase lower prices and shrug off climate risks. Properties facing the highest flood risk have gained 26.1% in value since January 2020, compared with 19.8% for homes with no exposure, property consultancy Cotality said Tuesday in Wellington. Discounts of as much as NZ$100,000 ($60,000) on some houses are proving too tempting for cost-conscious consumers, it said. As buyers accept known flood exposure in exchange for a lower price point, those properties are outgrowing the broader market in value, said Cotality Chief Data Officer Craig…

A Mississippi family whose 1-year-old child was killed when police fired into a moving car offered evidence Wednesday that they say challenges the officers’ account of being in danger when one opened fire. A preliminary autopsy requested by the family of Kohen Wiley suggested the baby was shot from the side of the car, not the front, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said, disputing officers’ claims that the car was heading toward them. Kohen’s mother, who was holding her baby in the passenger seat, says her friend was driving away from the officers. Kohen and his mother are Black, and…

Insurance Journal’s Risky Future series is hosting the “AI Tools for Underwriting” Demo Day, a series of free AI tool demonstrations designed exclusively for Carriers, MGAs, Specialty Program Leaders, and of course, Underwriters and Claims professionals. This event spotlights AI solutions that focus on AI platforms that enhance risk selection, pricing accuracy, submission triage, and portfolio management and more. Expect demonstrations around data ingestion + enrichment, risk summaries from messy docs, pricing guidance, and underwriting consistency. In partnership with Insurance Journal, Risky Future’s AI Tools for Underwriting Demo Day will be held on Wednesday, July 8, beginning at 1pm ET.…

The Trump administration is stepping up its efforts to cut red tape across the federal government, releasing a regulatory plan that would eliminate 702 existing administrative rules. The reductions published on Friday set a record for the number of deregulatory actions under consideration in a White House semiannual agenda plan. It’s also about twice as many as were in motion at any given time in Donald Trump’s first presidency and comes on top of 752 such regulatory rollbacks finalized or completed since the start of the federal government’s current fiscal year that began on October 1, 2025. Among the measures…

Microsoft is cutting about 2.1% of its workforce, or roughly 4,800 jobs, the latest in a wave of tech layoffs as the Windows maker spends heavily on AI infrastructure and uses the technology to improve efficiency across its business. Big Tech’s historic AI outlays, set to top $700 billion this year, are piling pressure on companies to show returns from the technology and offset the rising cost of rolling it out across their businesses. Amazon and Meta Platforms have also laid off thousands of employees this year. Microsoft announced the cuts on Monday following a rough stretch, with its shares…

As the deadly New World screwworm spreads through Texas, posing significant risk to the US cattle herd, experts are still puzzling over the mystery of how it got there. The parasite fly’s larvae, which feeds within the wounds of warm-blooded animals, was first detected in a calf in Zavala County at the start of last month, marking the first case in the country’s livestock in about five decades. Detections have grown to more than 30, and it’s still unclear how the pest got into the US or how it is spreading. The lack of information has made the screwworm a…

In legislative hearings after last year’s July 4 floods, the state’s emergency management chief made some recommendations to state lawmakers. They included empowering the agency to vet volunteers who show up after disasters and establishing clearer guidelines for local officials to decide whether to do autopsies during mass casualty events. There was another glaring problem that Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd told legislators about: Unlike paid firefighters and police officers, the state has no required training for all local emergency management coordinators, the people tasked with planning for and helping to lead the response to disasters. “I…

SquareTrade Europe, an Allstate company, has launched a new licensed insurer, SquareTrade Europe Insurance, headquartered in Brussels. SquareTrade said the move will strengthen its ability to design, launch and scale protection solutions more quickly across Europe, marking a significant step in the company’s European growth strategy. The company partners with major retailers and mobile carriers to help customers protect electronic devices at the point of sale. SquareTrade first entered the European market in 2013 and now operates across 15 markets including Germany, the Nordic region and Spain, working with 26 leading consumer electronics retailers and telecommunications providers, to support more…

A Walcott, Iowa insurance agent has been charged with over 20 felonies for allegedly opening insurance policies under the names of family who had no knowledge that the polices were taken out, the Iowa Insurance Division announced. Stanly Blythe, 61, was arrested on June 26 and booked into the Scott County Jail, where he was being held on a $75,000 cash-only bond. Investigators say that between February 2024 and January 2025, Blythe opened policies under the names of at least 11 family members and allegedly forged his family members’ signature on the policy documents. The commissionable premiums of the policies…