Health Care Costs Lead to Unmet Medical Needs

Researchers for the Urban Institute found that a rising number of Americans are struggling to obtain medical care due to rising health care costs. In fact, one in five people have had an unmet medical need due to rising costs over the past decade.

Individuals without coverage are having a difficult time paying for medical care since many government programs for the poor and uninsured are not keeping pace with the demand for care.

Even people with private health insurance are delaying treatment, due to higher premium costs and increases in out-of-pocket expenses. Fro

Full post…

Salt Lake City, Utah-based The Buckner Co. named Frank Lancaster vice president and corporate controller.

Lancaster is an accounting professional who has spent most of his career in insurance.

Since January The Buckner Co. has increased its employee ranks 10 percent.

The Buckner Co. occupies four offices in two states, serving construction, agriculture, and commercial businesses, as well as personal homeowner and auto insurance, employee benefits, trucking and transportation insurance and surety bonding.

TheSupreme Court is expected to vote on the fate of the health care reform law under President Obama this morning. In the meantime, the cost of health care has continued to increase with predictions that families will pay expenses surpassing $20,000 this year.

Health Care Reform Under Review

After months of anticipation on the fate of health care reform, the Supreme Court is set to issue a verdict on whether the mandate to purchase coverage by 2014 will stand.

Despite coming to this quick decision after more than six hours of arguments earlier in the week, Americans will not hear the official verdict until June.

This delay is largely due to the fact that individual votes are allowed to change between today and early summer. W

Full post…

In the past few years, dozens of property/casualty insurers have announced innovative protections for risks involving new technologies, current economic concerns, personal and family relationships, home-based small businesses, and more.

This is a new era in property/casualty insurance. Innovation is breaking out all over, said Roger Hurtvig, president of the Insurance Innovation Institute in Warwick, Rhode Island.

The P/C industry has a reputation of being slow to embrace new ideas but the IIIs own measure of innovation — the P/C New Products Index — has been rising steadily for the past year and hit a record high of 75 out of a possible 100 points last month.

It seems that with every day comes a new idea, Hurtvig said. The

Full post…

Personable Holdings, a provider of non-standard auto insurance has acquired Network Holding, the parent company of First Insurance Network and Peachtree Casualty Insurance Company.

First Insurance Network is a managing general insurance agency and Peachtree Casualty Insurance Company is a P&C insurance company licensed to write private passenger automobile insurance in 38 states.

The transaction has been approved by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

The acquisition expands Personable’s geographic footprint into Florida and Georgia states in the US and will bring 18,000 policyholders to the company and will add 400 new independent agent partners.

Personable chairman Kieran Sweeney said that the company is well positioned to execute its long-term growth strategy following this acquisition.

“Personable now has a strategic presence in four of the five largest states for non-standard auto insurance in the US, over 45,000 customers and 3,000 quality retail partnerships,” Sweeney said.

Floridians can expect to see a decrease in their car insurance rates soon because the legislature has finally made changes to PIP insurance.  According to the Sun Sentinels Kathleen Haughney, the no-fault auto insurance changes will take effect over the next year.  In the article, Will revamped car insurance rules cut your rates?, the opinion is that it surely wont happen right away, but it should work down the line.  Governor Rick Scott will sign the law into effect and changes will be made starting July 1, with additional provisions taking effect October 1 and January 1 of next year.

Many experts think it will be closer to two years before significant savings are seen by car insurance companies, but they must cut rates by 10% by October 1 or have a good explanation why they arent doing so.  The no-fault PIP insurance program pays for the first $10,000 of medical treatments after a car accident no matter whose fault the accident was.  PIP rates have more than doubled since 2008 as claims payments have skyrocketed, mostly due to fraud in the system.

The major change this new bill enacts is a time limit on seeking medical treatment after a car accident.  You have to seek medical attention within 14 days of the accident.  They believe this will cut down on the fraud where someone is injured after their car accident, but blames it on the accident for free medical care.  Some of the treatments that are commonly abused will now be banned from PIP coverage.  Two examples are massage and acupuncture.  Chiropractic care that is not for emergencies will now be limited to $2,500 of coverage.  The state will also become stricter with medical clinic licensing and create an organization that fights fraud in the PIP insurance program.

We will continue to watch the effects of this new law fighting no-fault PIP insurance fraud in Florida.