Insurance Policies

I read with interest your editorial "How to Make a Financial Killing" (Oct. 8). Gang violence is a tragedy that touches us all. Your newspaper reports almost daily on the unfortunate problem and its toll. Your editorial makes many important points. In commenting on insurance salespeople who use (and abuse) the natural fears of people living in crime-torn neighborhoods to sell low-cost policies, you observe that the public should aim its disgust at the gang problem rather than a few "brazen insurance salesmen."

Bernie Morse, 65, of Century City retired last year from the aerospace industry and joined the ranks of Medicare beneficiaries. The nearly $8,000 he used to spend annually on drugs for a liver condition now will be cut almost in half. Were a private insurer to take over his Medicare coverage, Morse believes, his drug bill would once again skyrocket - only he wouldn't have his aerospace income to pay the tab. "I'd be really scared about what could happen," he said. And he has reason to be afraid.

Q. I have AIDS and am thinking of selling my individual and group life insurance policies to generate money on which to live comfortably for the rest of my life. What kind of taxes will I have to pay on the money I get from these policies?-- M.W . A. As more and more people with life-threatening illnesses seek to cash in their life insurance policies to raise cash to see them through their final days, an entire industry has sprung up around these so-called viatical settlements.

You might not know it from the near-incessant fighting over the 2010 federal healthcare law, but its main provisions -- the ones designed to bring coverage to millions of the uninsured -- won't go into effect until next year. State officials gave Californians their first look Wednesday at some of those changes, revealing what the out-of-pocket costs would be for a new, standardized set of insurance policies. The chart comes from the Covered California insurance exchange, one of the new state marketplaces for individual insurance policies created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a.

In response to several expensive losses from lawsuits filed against the city, Torrance has beefed up its liability protection and has voted to issue a $3-million bond to replenish the reserves depleted by those losses. The Torrance City Council on Tuesday voted to purchase a new insurance policy covering liability losses up to $5 million, with a deductible of $2 million.

Insurers, regulators and agents complain that unscrupulous insurance salespeople are using worries about life insurance company failures to persuade consumers to trade in their current insurance policies for new ones. These exchanges benefit insurance agents because they earn commissions on each new life insurance policy sold. And generally speaking, agents get more money for writing new business than for maintaining old business. Occasionally, consumers also benefit by switching their policies.

Charles Schwab Corp. wants to sell insurance like it sells stocks, bonds and mutual funds--no frills, low commissions. Charles Schwab, chairman and founder of the San Francisco-based discount brokerage, said his company sees an opportunity because the insurance industry has a "vulnerability." Said Schwab: "Old-fashioned insurance has been done by highly compensated sales systems. We're not a part of that." Test-marketing efforts began last year with Englewood, Colo.

Before the Civil War, the corporate ancestor of insurance giant Aetna Inc. sold policies that reimbursed slave owners for financial losses when their human chattel perished, a company spokesman said Wednesday. Aetna, prompted by a New York activist who challenged the company to reveal details from its history, is studying the sale of such policies and considering "a meaningful way to demonstrate" its commitment to diversity, said spokesman Fred Laberge.

Some insurance policies that consumer advocates say you might want to avoid: * Flight insurance. Dependents need protection from the economic consequences of your death from any cause, not just an air crash. That comprehensive coverage comes from a basic life insurance policy. Besides, says J. Robert Hunter, president of the National Insurance Consumer Organization, "you're more likely to slip and fall in the bathtub than die in a plane crash." * Life insurance on children.

The Travelers group of insurance companies Friday asked the California Supreme Court to overturn an order issued last week by state Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie requiring it to renew about 22,000 car insurance policies in California.

Re "Getting nicked by razor blade makers," Column, Feb. 1 Ralph Nader warned of built-in obsolescence in the 1960s. Back then, we ladies were asking, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't they come up with a sheer stocking that doesn't run?" We live in a disposable world, and most financing and corporate planning seems based on that. It sort of makes a joke of recycling. David Lazarus' column on razor blades that seem built not to last touches on a theme that crosses my mind almost daily.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration, trying to defuse one of the most contentious issues in its healthcare law, proposed Friday a new way to shield religiously affiliated organizations, such as hospitals and universities, from having to provide contraceptive coverage directly to their employees. Instead, the employees would obtain coverage through a separate, private insurance policy at no cost. The proposed rule also reaffirms that churches and other houses of worship themselves are exempt from the contraceptive mandate in Obama's healthcare overhaul, and makes it easier for institutions to show that they qualify for the exemption.

The U.S. Treasury said it is selling the rest of its stake in American International Group Inc., in effect closing the books on one of the biggest and most reviled bailouts of the financial crisis that engulfed the world four years ago. The sale of the Treasury Department's remaining 234 million shares in an offering announced Monday would wipe out the government's 15.9% stake and pad the $15.1-billion profit it has made already from the giant New...

The state of California is likely to receive tens of millions of dollars more from insurance companies to clean up the Stringfellow Acid Pits toxic waste dump as a result of a ruling Thursday by the California Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the high court said consecutive insurance policies by various companies required each to pay up to their policy limits for damage caused by the Riverside County waste site. The companies wanted to restrict liability to just a share of the damage that occurred during the time each insurer's policy was in effect.

Re "NAACP boos Romney comments," July 12 Mitt Romney said to the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People that he will eliminate "nonessential, expensive programs" like President Obama's healthcare law. Romney was telling his fellow Americans that healthcare for millions of uninsured children, people with preexisting conditions and young people who can now stay on their parents' insurance policies longer are nonessential,...

SACRAMENTO -- A surprise sweep for unlicensed building contractors has resulted in 104 enforcement actions by a multi-agency state task force. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced Monday that the sweep hit off-the-books operators in 11 counties on June 20 and 21. Investigators carried out the enforcement actions in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties as well as in Alameda, Butte, El Dorado, Kern, Monterey,...

Perhaps the worst thing policyholders can say about their insurance company is that, well, it acts like an insurance company. Although it's been 3 1/2 years since the Northridge earthquake damaged wide swaths of the San Fernando Valley and the rest of Southern California, hundreds of residents continue to bicker with their insurers over claims that have either fallen through the cracks, been rejected on technicalities or intentionally ignored.

Most of them stand on the sideline, with clipboard in hand, headphones over their ears. They are the senior citizens of the NFL, card-carrying members of the quarterback club, formers stars and starters. Now, they are insurance policies, sounding boards and teachers. Joe Ferguson in Detroit. Ken Anderson in Cincinnati. Don Strock in Miami. If they get into a game, either the score is lopsided and the clock is running down, or the No. 1 and possibly No. 2 quarterbacks are injured.

WASHINGTON -- As Congress awaits the Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's healthcare legislation, House Speaker John A. Boehner had a stern warning for rank-and-file Republicans he has struggled to keep on message. “There will be no spiking of the ball,” Boehner wrote in a memo to GOP lawmakers. Even though Republicans have opposed the law, and tried to repeal it, there will be no celebrations if the court strikes down the law or parts of it. Republicans have worked to keep their troops focused on what GOP leaders see is their best talking point heading toward the November election: jobs and the economy . “Republicans are focused on the economy,” Boehner went on in the memo circulated late last week.

WASHINGTON - It's a deal that most businesses would relish: Buy an insurance policy to cover losses or falling prices, and the government will foot most of the bill. Such an arrangement has been enjoyed for more than a decade by the farmers who grow crops such as corn and soybeans, and the companies that insure them. And it's about to get even better. The farm bill now before Congress includes a provision - estimated to cost about $3 billion a year - that would help cover the losses farmers suffer before their crop insurance policies kick in. Those losses, termed deductibles, can run in the tens of thousands of dollars for a typical mid-size farm.