Author: completebodyneeds

San Francisco-based Outmarket AI announced it has raised $34.5 million in Series B funding. The round was led by SignalFire, with participation from Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital and Dash Fund. The funding comes months after the company announced a $17 million Series A. The latest round brings Outmarket’s total funding to $56.5 million. Outmarket says its recently surpassed 10,000 active users, including more than 300 agency customers. Outmarket’s platform connects directly to agency management systems automating processes across commercial, benefits, personal lines and specialty insurance. Outmarket is an AI platform for insurance brokerages and agencies. Topics InsurTech…

For years, residents of this Southern California beach town could walk a mile along a stretch of cream-colored sand and dip their toes in the waves lapping ashore. That trip has been cut short. Coastal erosion has been eating away at the beach in San Clemente, known for nearly a century as a “Spanish village by the sea.” The rising sea and crashing waves have pushed the shoreline landward, splitting the city’s picturesque North Beach. Crumbling seaside bluffs have damaged oceanfront homes and forced the repeated closure of a passenger rail line considered the second busiest in the country. It’s…

A Florida appeals court this week underscored state regulators’ authority to investigate insurance service companies, two years after a viatical settlement firm refused to open its books to the state Department of Financial Services. “We agree with the trial court and hold … that the Department did and does have such authority, statutorily conferred,” reads the 1st District Court of Appeals opinion handed down Wednesday in Litai Assets vs. Florida DFS. Litai Assets LLC, in business since at least 2009 and headquartered in Pompano Beach, services settlement contracts when parties sell their life insurance benefits for a cash payout. Viatical…

Europe’s insurance and pensions watchdog warned extreme heat is adding to risks the industries face. The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority said multiple sectors are likely to be impacted as temperatures rise, including insurance covering medical costs and income protection. While the summer’s wildfires captured headlines, “climate change also has quieter, less visible consequences,” EIOPA Chair Petra Hielkema said in a statement on Wednesday. “The impact of heat waves on human health is one of them,” she said. “Our preliminary study shows that it could become a material risk factor for certain insurance lines and pension providers, despite offsetting…

AXA XL said it launched AXA XL Excess & Surplus Lines Insurance Company (AXA XL E&S), dedicated to exclusively serve wholesale brokers. This strategic move enhances AXA XL’s underwriting focus and capabilities within the Excess & Surplus (E&S) insurance market. Operating alongside existing AXA XL entities and participating in the same AXA XL pool as Indian Harbor Insurance Company, AXA XL E&S will issue policies developed by AXA XL in collaboration with wholesale brokers nationwide. The launch will be synchronized with the rollout of AXA XL’s new digital platform, Guidewire, which will serve as the E&S policy administration system starting…

The nation’s flood insurance program struggles to balance affordability, flood protection and cost to taxpayers, leaving millions vulnerable at a time when climate change is driving flood risk higher. Nationwide, just 2.4% of properties are covered by 4.5 million federal flood insurance policies, an Associated Press analysis shows — but 8.4% are at severe or extreme risk of flooding. The problem is especially bad in eastern Kentucky — where in some ZIP codes, no more than 5% of properties are covered by flood insurance, even though hundreds or thousands of buildings are at extreme risk of flooding, according to figures…

Attorneys for three cancer patients told a Missouri jury on Sept. 29 that Bayer’s Monsanto unit failed to adequately test its Roundup weedkiller before selling it, starting a trial that could help determine the viability of some Roundup lawsuits after a US Supreme Court ruling in Bayer’s favor this year. Bayer is facing approximately 65,000 claims in US state and federal courts from plaintiffs who say they developed cancer after using Roundup at home or on the job. The company is seeking to resolve nearly all existing and future claims through a $7.25 billion class action settlement that is under…

As Qu Shaolong pulls his electric truck into one of the many charging stations that dot the Chinese coal hub of Yulin, the latest phase in the country’s energy transition is playing out in real time. The roads in this part of Shaanxi province are filled with big rigs ferrying coal from mines to railheads. More and more of them are, like Qu’s, battery-operated, allowing truck owners to avoid diesel prices that have climbed steadily this year. The shift is changing China’s energy landscape. “I don’t think anyone will switch back to diesel trucks,” said the 39-year-old, who has spent…

A pilot of a jet carrying more than 170 passengers to Tel Aviv stabbed his colleague and tried to crash the plane in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branded a serious security incident. Catastrophe was narrowly avoided after a passenger and members of crew stormed the cockpit of the Flydubai plane that had taken off in Dubai and managed to stabilize the jet, after it plunged more than 14,000 feet (4,300 meters) in less than 30 seconds at almost the speed of sound. “They prevented a huge disaster,” Netanyahu said at a briefing on Wednesday. The jet later made…

Ken Griffin has spent years trying to reshape Miami from a playground for the world’s wealthy into a high-finance and technology hub. That effort has largely centered on the city’s burgeoning Brickell financial district, where Griffin is constructing a headquarters for his Citadel empire. With a $2 billion donation to build a Carnegie Mellon University campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, Griffin is betting that he can complete the transformation. “The magnitude of this gift represents the magnitude of the aspiration,” Griffin said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Griffin envisions the university as an educational incubator where engineering talent will…