Insurance Industry

U.S. property and casualty insurers are expected to pay $6.5 billion in losses from 23 catastrophes during 2007, much of it from California wildfires, according to ISO Inc., a company that supplies statistical information for the industry. That figure, however, is dwarfed by those of earlier years when multiple major hurricanes slammed into the U.S. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, property insurers paid more than $62 billion.

I am glad to hear Blue Cross of California is no longer asking doctors to reveal their patients' medical history if there is anything to give the giant insurer grounds to cancel the patients' coverage. I don't believe it, but it's nice to hear. ("Blue Cross halts letters amid furor," Feb. 13.) Blue Cross has been doing this for a long time, and I have to believe it will continue. No one tells the medical insurance industry what not to do. Tom Freeman Pinon Hills

One of California's largest for-profit insurers stopped a controversial practice of canceling sick policyholders Friday after a judge ordered Health Net Inc. to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient it dropped in the middle of chemotherapy. The ruling by a private arbitration judge was the first of its kind and the most powerful rebuke to the state's major insurers whose cancellation practices are under fire from the courts, state regulators and elected officials.

Film producer Paul Schiff is a victim of the actors strike. The fact that the actors strike hasn't happened yet, and many in Hollywood doubt it will, is beside the point. Schiff and producers like him are at the mercy of insurance companies, which are refusing to cover independent movies that can't be filmed before mid-June.

California's largest health insurers, facing possible fines and other penalties for the way they sometimes cancel policies after patients pile up medical bills, meet today with regulators to discuss ongoing state enforcement efforts. The meeting was called by the Department of Managed Health Care, which oversees health maintenance organizations and other types of health plans, because it was nearing completion of investigations into the cancellation practices of Health Net Inc.

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner proposed emergency changes Monday to regulations that help determine rates for auto and homeowner policies, saying the changes would "help speed lower insurance rates to consumers." The proposal would make changes to the formulas used to set rates. These changes would require insurance companies to show premium trends over the last six years. Under the current regulation, they must show trends going back three years.

New rules for setting rates on car, home and other insurance policies in California will result in higher premiums for businesses and individuals, a consumer advocate charged Wednesday. The regulations adopted Tuesday by the state Department of Insurance "are an outrageous giveaway to the insurance industry," Harvey Rosenfield, founder of Consumer Watchdog, said in a letter to Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Rosenfield, author of Proposition 103, the 1988 ballot measure that overhauled California's insurance regulations, said the rules would weaken the state's ability to mandate lower rates, such as the 15.9%, $250-million cut Poizner recently ordered in Allstate's auto insurance premiums.

First American Corp., the largest U.S. title insurer, said profit fell 65% in the first quarter as revenue declined. Net income slumped to $29.3 million, or 32 cents a share, from $83.8 million, or 84 cents, a year earlier, the Santa Ana-based company said. Revenue fell 22% to $1.66 billion as the insurer received fewer orders, and for a lower average price, in the title insurance business. "The company continues to be impacted by the slowdown in real estate and mortgage activity," Chief Executive Parker Kennedy said.

The California Legislature is moving to curb some of the health insurance industry's most profitable and contested practices as lawmakers resurrect portions of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's unsuccessful proposal to expand medical coverage. More than a dozen health bills are advancing through the Legislature, many over the objection of insurers. Some of the proposals were transplanted from the plan that passed the Assembly last year, only to be rejected in the state Senate in January.

Mercury General Corp., a Los Angeles-based low-cost insurer, today is expected to announce rate cuts for about 1.7 million of its automobile and homeowner insurance customers, mainly in Southern California. Most of the cuts will go to automobile policyholders and, perhaps, offset at least a little pain from weekly hikes in gasoline prices. The owners of 1.5 million cars will shave 3% off their annual bills, about $30 per vehicle, according to the California Department of Insurance.