Author: completebodyneeds

Thailand plans to provide government-funded disaster insurance to about 30 million households in high-risk areas, while seeking to shift some of the growing cost of floods and other catastrophes to private insurers. The government on Tuesday approved a 15.5 billion baht ($467 million) annual insurance program to cover 30 million households against floods, storms and earthquakes, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters Tuesday. Thailand currently spends at least 30 billion baht a year compensating households for disaster losses, according to government estimates. The program will provide about 75 billion baht in total coverage each year, with the rest of the…

California legislators introduced a bill Saturday that would update the state’s wildfire response without shifting liability away from publicly traded utilities. The move comes after extended negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which had been advocating for measures that would bar insurers from suing utilities to recover payouts for property policyholders. The legislation is the result of a compromise with Newsom and is intended to bolster the state’s wildfire recovery response amid a rapidly warming climate. Newsom said the legislation will also speed up payouts to survivors, put new limits on hedge funds pursuing wildfire-related lawsuits against utilities and tighten…

Los Angeles County sued State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, for alleged delays, denials and underpayments of property damage claims filed by victims of the massive January 2025 wildfires. Monday’s lawsuit, following a county investigation, alleges State Farm withheld money from policyholders in a variety of ways that violated contract terms. The county said in a statement that the company failed to cooperate with the probe launched in November, refused to provide requested documents in response to a subpoena, and made clear it was not interested in resolving the concerns raised on behalf of wildfire victim. Related: California Taking Action…

Crest Insurance Group is acquiring Tegeler & Associates in Pinedale, Wyoming. Tegeler & Associates was founded in 1943 and acquired by the Tegeler family in the 1970s. The agency has 14 locations throughout Wyoming and provides insurance services for individuals, families and businesses. Crest is headquartered in Tucson, Nevada. The brokerage provides property/casualty, life, health and employee benefits services throughout the West. Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Was this article valuable? Yes No Here are more articles you may enjoy. Interested in Mergers? Get automatic alerts for this topic.

A federal judge in Alabama has likened State Farm to a gambler and warned that the insurer’s apparent strategy of trying to move claims litigation from state to federal court is a risky bet that might not be worth taking. “The Court cautions State Farm that this practice of risky removal, if continuing, is undertaken at its own peril,” U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks wrote in denying the insurer’s bid to remove a case brought by 53 homeowners out of Houston County Circuit Court and into her federal court. The judge remanded the case back to the county court,…

A federal judge has agreed with the owner and manager of the Dali cargo ship responsible for the collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge that the bulk of the remaining claims against them for economic damage are invalid. On August 25, U.S. District Senior Judge James K. Bredar dismissed most of the economic damage claims by the city and county of Baltimore and eight consolidated claims by private entities including insurers. Citing a 1927 Supreme Court opinion (Robins Dry Dock & Repair Co. v. Flint), Bredar found that the public and private entities that have sued are precluded from recovering economic…

The music publishing branches of Sony Music and Warner Music have sued Anthropic in California federal court for allegedly misusing their copyrighted song compositions to train its Claude AI models. Sony and Warner said in the complaint, filed on Friday, that Anthropic pirated hundreds of song lyrics and sheet music from The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson and hundreds of other artists to train Claude to respond to human prompts. Related: Sony Music Warns Companies to Stop Training AI on Its Artists’ Content The lawsuit is the latest in a wave of cases brought against tech companies by copyright owners…

Russian-speaking hackers used SpaceX’s AI coding assistant, Cursor, to help break in to a Belgian chemical company and at least six other firms earlier this year, according to data reviewed by Reuters and reports issued Aug. 27 by cybersecurity companies Gambit Security and CloudSek. The cybercriminals’ AI-boosted hacking spree is the latest example of how rogue actors are using commercial AI tools to carry out intrusions. Gambit’s chief strategy officer, Curtis Simpson, said it also showed how AI providers were locked in to a never-ending arms race with malicious users trying to circumvent their guardrails. “This is going to be…

The US Federal Trade Commission and 22 US states sued Amazon.com Inc. over claims the e-commerce giant systematically overcharged advertisers for years. The FTC, which enforces antitrust and consumer laws, and the state attorneys general allege in the suit filed Monday that Amazon gave advertisers inadequate disclosures around the pricing and terms of the “sponsored” listings that users see as the top products when they search the company’s marketplace. “For years, Amazon has secretly inflated the auction prices for three of its advertising products: Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display,” the regulator and the states said in a complaint…

Tropical storm warnings have been issued for parts of the Texas and Louisiana coast as a potential system gathers strength in the Gulf of Mexico. The still-unnamed storm was 130 miles (209 kilometers) south of Morgan City, Louisiana, with top winds of 35 miles per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory on Monday. If the system further organizes and its winds reach 39 mph, it will be named Edouard, becoming the Atlantic’s fifth storm of the six-month hurricane season. The storm is very small, but it’s over waters of about 86F (30C), warm enough to provide…