Author: completebodyneeds

Employment in Canada fell by 41,700 in August, reversing some of the labor market momentum seen in recent months as the manufacturing sector posted the only significant increase. The jobless rate held steady at 6.4% while job losses were concentrated in Ontario and Quebec, Statistics Canada reported on Friday [Sept. 4]. The finance, insurance and real estate category lost almost 10,000 jobs. Employment also declined in the retail, wholesale trade and hospitality industries. The number of public sector workers fell for a third straight month, declining by 20,000 in August and 78,000 since May. Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs increased by 22,100,…

A federal judge has declined to approve a class action lawsuit accusing GEICO of underpaying losses for totaled vehicles in New Jersey. The court declined to approve the class after concluding that individual issues outweighed the commonality of the proposed class. The purported class action sought to challenge GEICO’s use of a factor, also used by other insurers, that adjusts the actual cash value (ACV) of a vehicle to account for the condition of the vehicle based on factors such as options and mileage, or as otherwise explained “to bring the ACV from retail to private party condition.” Jessica Dinicola-Ortiz…

The global reinsurance market maintains a very strong capital position that has benefitted from favorable earnings in recent years, with solid underwriting profits and resilient investment returns. However, this record capacity from both traditional reinsurers and alternative capital markets continues to outpace reinsurance demand. Fitch therefore expects market pricing to soften further and terms and conditions to offer growing flexibility to cedants at the 2027 renewals, as the imbalance between abundant supply and modest demand growth continues. However, returns on average equity should still be attractive in the low-teens as reinsurers remain disciplined in deploying capital to select underwriting opportunities,…

The staff caring for Jakob Blodgett said he already had been sneaking candy and refused to take his insulin. An employee at the Arizona group home where the 9-year-old boy was being cared for texted a supervisor about the boy’s elevated blood-glucose reading. The response? Give him water. After two missed doses of the long-lasting insulin he needed, he was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with brain swelling, put on a ventilator and died in 2022 of complications from Type 1 diabetes. There were no penalties imposed for Blodgett’s death, and Arizona’s largest group home provider now stands…

Vivace Insurance Partners Appoints Fenig as CEO Vivace Insurance Partners named Cordell Fenig CEO of Vivace Americas. Fenig was promoted to the position after having served as senior underwriter since the company’s Americas launch in March 2024. Fenig will lead Vivace expanding carrier support through Markel, a leading carrier in the London market, and progressing toward Lloyd’s coverholder status. The company also plans to build its team to support its expansion. Prior to joining Vivace, Fenig held underwriting and account management positions at Roanoke Insurance Group, where he specialized in marine, cargo, legal liabilities, and logistics insurance. His background includes…

OpenAI’s top scientist has warned that artificial intelligence is evolving so rapidly that it is becoming increasingly difficult for humans to understand and control,and said he expects AI labs to voluntarily slow development for safety reasons. In a relatively short space of time, AI models can operate computers, collaborate with humans and other AI systems and carry out research projects, wrote chief scientist Jakub Pachocki in a post on Sunday. It won’t be long until they can also improve themselves without human intervention, a process known as recursive self-improvement, he said. “This is a time that calls for extreme caution,”…

The Seattle Times and Newsday sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Friday, alleging in federal court that the tech companies copied the newspapers’ journalism without permission to train their AI systems. The suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges OpenAI and Microsoft scraped the newspapers’ websites, including content behind paywalls, and incorporated articles into datasets used to train and operate products including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI features. The newspapers, based in Seattle and Long Island, New York, said the companies’ AI products can reproduce passages from their reporting, closely paraphrase articles and…

I have been writing about the insurance risks of intoxicating hemp products since 2021, when delta-8 THC gummies first started showing up in convenience stores and gas stations across the country. Back then, our message to the cannabis, hemp and insurance industries was simple. These products violate the spirit, if not the actual letter, of the 2018 Farm Bill, and the cannabis and hemp industries and their insurers should be wary of a government response. Well, a response from Congress took more than five years, but the response has teeth. The Federal Ban Congress rewrote the federal definition of hemp…

So-called “nuclear” verdicts did not subside in 2025. In fact, it was quite the opposite. According to a new report from strategic communications and research firm Marathon Strategies, there were nearly 200 verdicts resulting in an award of at least $10 million in 2025. Verdicts like this against corporate defendants have come to be known as nuclear verdicts, and the total from 2025–a 40.7% increase over 2024–is the highest Marathon has seen since 2009. The total sum of the identified nuclear verdicts was about $25.6 billion, Marathon said, with 40 cases reaching what the firm described as “thermonuclear” level, or…

Axon Crisis Management Market Details: Axon’s Crisis Management division provides specialized insurance solutions for contaminated-product recall, consumer-goods product recall, and restaurant food-borne illness and contamination exposures. The team delivers tailored coverage and practical guidance to help clients anticipate, respond to, and recover from complex product and crisis risks. Led by Alex Pittignano and Marcos Garcia Norris, and supported by a skilled team of underwriters and operations professionals, the division combines deep expertise in product recall, political violence, and food-borne illness with responsive service to protect clients and support business continuity. Products offered through Axon Crisis Management: terrorism and political violence;…