Author: completebodyneeds

Boston-based Plymouth Rock Assurance Corp. named Chris Taylor as president and chief executive officer. He will lead Plymouth Rock’s Independent Agency Group, effective October 12. Taylor brings personal lines leadership experience to the role, most recently as vice president and head of state management at The Hanover Insurance Group, where he had P&L responsibility for auto, home, and ancillary lines. In that role, he built and strengthened independent agency relationships, expanded the company’s portfolio, and led profitable countrywide growth. He helped bring several new products to market, including a successful high-net-worth offering. Before joining The Hanover, Taylor worked at Plymouth…

Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman is exploring a sale of insurance software provider Applied Systems that could value the company at up to $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The private equity firm is working with investment bankers at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs on the process, which has attracted interest from prospective buyers, said the sources, who requested anonymity because the matter is confidential. Applied Systems, Hellman & Friedman, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Headquartered in Chicago, Applied Systems provides software that helps insurance agencies and brokerages manage customer relationships, policy administration, and other…

A hurricane watch has been issued for Hawaii’s Big Island as Tropical Storm Nolo strengthens south of the island chain. Nolo, with top winds of 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour was 500 miles south of Honolulu and on a track that will take it close the Big Island early Saturday as a major hurricane, the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. In addition to the hurricane watch, flood watches have been posted for the Big Island, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe through Saturday. “Residents and visitors should take this threat very seriously,” the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency…

Early this year, Insurify caused a stir when it began what was thought to be the first insurance app with ChatGPT’s Open AI. In fact, the news momentarily shook the S&P 500 Insurance index. On Sept. 23, the online insurance marketplace said it was cutting off a different personal AI agent. Meta’s Muse has been blocked from accessing Insurify’s comparison platform because the information the AI agent spits out “risks stripping carrier quotes of critical contextual information that consumers need to make informed insurance-buying decisions,” Insurify said. The move protects consumers and insurers, it added. Related: Insurify Starts App With…

Communications failures that snarled hundreds of flights across the Northeast on Monday have put the spotlight back on the aging systems that air traffic controllers rely on in the U.S. Congress already handed the Federal Aviation Administration $12.5 billion last year to overhaul technology after the deadliest U.S. plane crash in more than two decades killed 67 people when an American Airlines flight collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River and a series of radar outages later that spring led to widespread cancellations at Newark Liberty International Airport. The same Philadelphia facility that had the radar…

New Zealand’s cyber security agency said China was the country’s most persistent and capable state-backed cyber threat, as foreign actors targeted government agencies and organizations in sectors including health, education and information technology. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of the New Zealand intelligence community, said it had identified activity suspected to originate from foreign state actors that put sensitive New Zealand information at risk. It linked suspected state-sponsored cyber activity to actors from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, according to its annual Cyber Threat Report released on Thursday. “Of these nations the People’s Republic of China is…

A powerful coastal storm is building off the Northeast, threatening to bring torrential rain across parts of eastern Massachusetts and raising flood risks to New York City, New Jersey and Washington, DC into the weekend. The Nor’easter system is forecast to churn up waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters) and pound the Mid-Atlantic and New England coastline, said Rob Carolan, president of Hometown Forecast Services. In addition, eastern Massachusetts may get as much as 5 inches of rain starting Friday and through the weekend. “It looks like a decent storm,” Carolan said. “The ocean is going to get…

Companies must prepare for successful attacks on critical power infrastructure as both physical and cyber threats continue to increase, the CEO of E.ON, Europe’s largest operator of energy grids, said on Thursday. “Attacks on our grids are increasing significantly,” Leonhard Birnbaum told an industry conference, adding that both physical and cyber attacks had increased in recent years. Several sabotage attempts on Germany’s power grid earlier this month have highlighted the vulnerability of such critical assets, exposing the limitations operators and authorities face when attempting full protection. Birnbaum said companies should abandon the idea that they could fully shield themselves from…

PB Fintech Ltd. led a slide in shares of Indian insurance companies, distributors and lenders on Thursday, after the country’s insurance regulator proposed caps on commissions and tighter management expenses. PB Fintech plunged by a record 30%, its worst day since its November 2021 debut. Max Financial Services Ltd. slumped as much as 13%, L&T Finance Ltd. slipped by 10% and HDFC Life Insurance tumbled as much as 8.5%. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India late Wednesday proposed measures that could slash insurance fee income for banks and digital brokers by as much as 90% in high-margin categories,…

An OpenAI model hacked an Australian government website earlier this year, marking one of the first known cyberattacks by artificial intelligence on a government database. The AI system gained unauthorized access to files on a website for reporting healthcare statistics, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday. There’s no evidence that the personal information of Australian citizens was compromised in the hack on June 18, Albanese said, speaking in New York. The news of the hack came just hours after heads of AI companies urged world leaders to work together to address the possibility that AI systems outpace human control.…