Author: completebodyneeds

Munich Re said it has investments of as much as €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) in private credit, an asset class that has been facing fund redemptions and scrutiny of underwriting standards. Private credit “is about 1% of the asset portfolio of our entire group,” Chief Financial Officer Andrew Buchanan said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “It is between about €2 billion and €2.5 billion, which for us is an incredibly digestible amount.” Private credit has been rattled in recent months by concerns about overspending on artificial intelligence, the technology’s disruptive power and lending standards more broadly. Germany’s top financial…

New Jersey car accident victims cannot recover future medical expenses in a personal injury trial if the expenses do not exceed the state’s $250,000 no-fault personal injury protection (PIP) coverage limit, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled in a unanimous opinion. The ruling came in a case where future medical expenses under $250,000 were presented to a jury and included in a jury award despite the state’s no-fault law that says expenses that come in under the limit are inadmissible in a personal injury trial. The court explained that the no-fault law seeks to prevent a double recovery. Even…

Passengers from the Hondius cruise ship are being repatriated under a patchwork of measures that reflect uncertainty over how this strain of hantavirus spreads, complicating efforts to contain the deadly outbreak. Some passengers are being placed in biocontainment units, notably in France, for at least two weeks. Australia plans to quarantine passengers in a purpose-built facility outside Perth. But in the Netherlands, most are being asked to self-isolate for six weeks, with short outdoor walks permitted under masking and distancing rules. The divergent responses come as health officials stress that the risk to the broader public remains low and that…

Cross-border insurance programs are both commercially attractive and operationally demanding. Acquiring new businesses, adding geographies, teams, products, lines of business, and partners is a real opportunity for growth. But most insurance platforms are traditionally optimized for local taxes, language, currency, regulatory reporting and workflows. Over time, that creates a patchwork of regional systems, vendors, and reporting, so while the business can still run locally, the group struggles to operate as one. When the group operates with a global-first foundation, the gap between local execution and group oversight narrows. In practice, many firms bridge the gaps through people, using their teams…

This article is part of a sponsored series by EZLynx. Texas Trailblazer Insurance has built its reputation on delivering outstanding personalized service and staying highly responsive to client needs. As the insurance agency continued to grow and take on new business, the volume of emails and client communications increased quickly, making it more difficult to keep workflows efficient without sacrificing response time or customer experience. The agency needed a way to streamline client communications and improve follow-ups to ensure timely outreach for stronger retention. With the help of EZLynx, Texas Trailblazer was able to optimize client communications without spending hours…

Insurance Journal’s Risky Future series is hosting the “AI Tools for Homeowners Data” Demo Day, a series of free AI tool demonstrations designed exclusively for home insurers. This event features property data platforms and AI tools designed to enhance homeowners underwriting, catastrophe modeling, inspection and analysis, and more. In partnership with Insurance Journal, Risky Future’s AI Tools for Homeowners Data Demo Day will be held on Wednesday, May 13. Beginning at 1pm ET, AI technology experts will present and demo their products to attendees. Vendors will demonstrate property attribute enrichment, wildfire/hail/wind modeling, roof condition analysis, replacement cost tools, and real-time…

Connecticut has enacted legislation addressing wage theft in the building trades; job protections for services workers; and compensation for workers who are assaulted on the job, including nurses and teachers; The new law also requires employers to disclose position wage ranges and general benefit descriptions in job postings. Governor Ned Lamont signed into law Public Act 26-12, noting that the omnibus bill passed with bipartisan support. He called the new provisions “commonsense safeguards on behalf of those who keep our state and our economy running.” The omnibus measure includes enhanced workers’ compensation for assaulted workers. Teachers, health care providers, and…

Rufus French, a former NFL player who starred at Ole Miss, was sentenced last week to over 16 years in prison for orchestrating a years-long scheme to scam government agencies out of nearly $200 million by selling patient information and sham doctors’ orders for orthotic braces that patients did not want or need. According to the Department of Justice, French worked with overseas telemarketing call centers that pressured elderly Americans to provide their personal and health insurance information and agree to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces. French paid sham telemedicine companies kickbacks to obtain signed doctors’ orders from doctors and…

New Zealand’s government plans a law change to prevent private legal action against greenhouse gas emitters, arguing cases have created business uncertainty and deterred investment. The amendment will impact current and future proceedings before the courts, including a case brought by climate campaigner Mike Smith against companies including Fonterra Co-operative Group, Genesis Energy, Z Energy and New Zealand Steel. Smith’s case alleges that the companies’ emissions add to damage from climate change, creating a public nuisance for him and others. His case is due to be heard in the High Court next year, after the Supreme Court overruled a lower…

Iran says it’s deployed small submarines to act as an “invisible guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz amid a series of rejected peace deals between Tehran and the US. The Islamic Republic has at least 16 of the Ghadir-class midget submarines, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Each has a crew of fewer than 10 people and can carry either two torpedoes or two Chinese-designed C-704 anti-ship cruise missiles. But they are noisy compared with most modern submarines, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Their crews…