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An attorney and accountant have been charged with participating in a “rent-a-patient” scam described by authorities as the largest medical insurance fraud case in the nation. Dickson, who faces 106 felony counts, is accused of using his law practice to launder as much as $3 million through attorney-client trust accounts and creating fraudulent documents to disguise patient recruiting activities. The charges include grand theft, insurance fraud, money laundering and perjury. He faces up to 73 years in prison if convicted of all counts. Harnen, who faces 118 counts, is accused of helping recruiters and administrators hide their illegal activities by… Read More »Orange County Medical Scam

Wildfires, again, in my home state of California. People are looking for maps of where they are at, so here are some resources:

California’s Department of Insurance concider bringing “pay-as-you-drive” automobile insurance to the state. According to the DOI, California Insurance Code requires automobile insurance rates to be based on three mandatory factors in decreasing order of importance, with the second mandatory factor is “the number of miles [the insured] drives annually.” Under the current regulations, the annual mileage factor is defined as an estimate of the number of miles an insured vehicle will be driven in the next year. The regulations specify how the mileage estimate may be determined. However, insurers establish their own mileage rating brackets for rating purposes. Mileage rating… Read More »Pros and Cons of Pay-As-You-Drive Auto Insurance

Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services Insurance Division has published the 2007 Annual Complaint Statistics, ranking major insurers based on their complaint records in six common lines of insurance: personal auto, health, homeowner, life, annuities, and long-term care. This report ranks major insurers by their complaint records, which are based on the number of confirmed consumer complaints closed by the Insurance Division and the amount of premium dollars written by the insurers. According to DCBS, the report allows consumers to see at a glance how a company compares with its competitors; the information should help consumer to make sound… Read More »Annual Insurance Complaint Statistics Published in Oregon

A congressional report found two out of three work-related illnesses and injuries may be going unreported, and called into question federal regulators’ claims that workplace problems are declining. The House Committee on Education and Labor, which released the report in Washington, D.C., plans a hearing Tuesday, June 24, 2008, focusing on whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is adequately enforcing construction safety rules. The committee is expected to hear questions about recent construction deaths in New York and on the Las Vegas Strip, where officials say 12 workers have died in resort projects since January 2007. The committee chairman,… Read More »Workplace Injuries Unreported

Employers must show that there was a reason other than age discrimination in cases where lay-offs appear to target older workers, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The case—Clifford B. Meacham et al. vs. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory—involved a companywide staff reduction in which 30 of 31 salaried employees fired were 40 years of age or older. In 2000, a jury found that the bias was unintentional, but that the older workers were disproportionately affected by the lay-offs and granted monetary awards to 17 former employees of the lab, which is a unit of Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. A panel… Read More »Court Rules for Employees in Age Bias Case

Owners of nearly 90 percent of the structures destroyed in last month’s wildfire in the Santa Cruz Mountains did not properly clear flammable brush from the property, state fire officials say. California law requires property owners in forested areas to remove or reduce most vegetation within 100 feet of a building. But a state report found that most of the 132 structures destroyed by the fire had “poor defensible space quality.” That figure includes 63 homes and 69 outbuildings destroyed in the mountains above Watsonville. Fire officials say it’s likely that fewer homes would have been destroyed if homeowners had… Read More »Homeowners Aren’t Protecting Homes from Fires

The disc, called “Prepare, Survive, Recover,” contains articles, videos and Web links that can be viewed on both PC and Macintosh computers. It also includes free home inventory software called “Know Your Stuff.” The software walks homeowners through the home inventory process. Once complete, an inventory not only helps homeowners buy the right amount of insurance, but also serves as a recovery tool in the event of a loss.IINC is non-profit, non-lobbying insurance communications association dedicated to helping the public understand insurance and risk management issues. For more information, visit www.iinc.org.

California’s Senate Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee approved two bills — one allowing insurance cmpanies to require spyware to be installed in vehicles, and the other clarifying the duties of an agent versus those of a broker. AB 2956 would provide that an insurance agent is a person who transacts insurance other than life, disability or health insurance on behalf of an admitted insurance company. The bill “would establish a rebuttable presumption, subject to exception, that a person is acting as an insurance broker if the application shows that the person is acting as an insurance broker and is licensed… Read More »Agent-Broker, Spyware Bills Approved in California