Insurance Industry

Doctors are still getting paid, hospitals are being reimbursed and the nation's 37 million Medicare beneficiaries are receiving their health services without interruption. But the federal budget impasse has left one important Medicare player holding the bag. The health insurance industry, which contracts with the federal government to process Medicare claims, is spending about $28 million a week of its own money to keep benefits flowing smoothly during the government shutdown.

Climatic disasters are causing such expensive damage worldwide that the insurance industry and, increasingly, bankers have plunged into studies of global warming. Their interest injects new economic concerns into a scientific debate over the product of another collection of corporate giants--the petroleum industry. Those are the findings of an annual study of global environmental and population developments conducted by the Worldwatch Institute.

Not long ago, some of this city's most influential corporations embraced HMOs as a way to cut medical costs. Now the same companies are telling those health insurers to, in effect, get lost. While conceding that they helped HMOs gain a dominance in Minnesota matched in few other states, these employers now complain that the creatures they helped invent have grown so big they are stifling competition and medical innovation. And the corporations--including the likes of General Mills Inc.

The insurance industry has poured $1.4 million in contributions into a state initiative sponsored by Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush that would limit damage claims by uninsured drivers, drunk drivers and fleeing felons. The industry's gifts to the Proposition 213 campaign constitute almost 90% of the total raised so far--$1,421,260 out of $1,585,701.

You might say that Donna Smith holds Courtney Love's film career in the palm of her hand. Smith runs a company called Entertainment Coalition, which coordinates bond and insurance coverage for movies, musical acts and other properties. Her background is in dry stuff like management and international banking.

Prudential Insurance Co. confirmed Tuesday that it destroyed large numbers of files on customer complaints from California and 13 other Western states, adding a new dimension to a mushrooming investigation by Florida of alleged document destruction by the nation's largest insurer. The confirmation came after the Los Angeles Times and the Florida Insurance Department independently obtained copies of an internal Sept.

Don Stewart, 70, insurance industry advocate and organizer who fought to extend coverage to minorities. Stewart began his career as an agent for Farmer's Insurance before founding his own agency in Pasadena in 1963. He developed that into the American Agents Alliance, a statewide cooperative of independent agents that lobbies on political and regulatory issues affecting the insurance industry.

U.S., Japan Fail to Settle Insurance Dispute: The two countries did not bridge their large differences over Tokyo's deregulation of its insurance market in two days of talks, despite a looming June 1 deadline to resolve the dispute. Officials said more discussions will be held soon. The United States charges that Japan has liberalized one small sector of the insurance industry in which foreign firms have made some inroads, while keeping restrictions in most other areas.