Aviva has revamped “People and Places”, its group personal accident (GPA), sickness and business travel policy, as it looks to grow business in this area.

New extensions including closure of airspace, kidnap and ransom cover, nuclear, chemical and biological cover, war cover outside the policyholder’s country of domicile, cover for rehabilitation expenses, search and rescue, and evacuation from life threatening situations.

Aviva specialty lines underwriter, Lisa Wild, comments: “We aim to reinforce Aviva’s reputation as a credible GPA partner with a policy that can rival the best available in the marketplace.”

People and Place can be purchased as part of Aviva’s commercial combined offering, or as a standalone policy.

This morning I attended a meeting where I spoke with a local insurance agent about a number of topics. He had missed our meeting the week before and some in the group asked about his uncharacteristic abscence.

It turns out he serves as a volunteer fireman for his local village. On the date of our last scheduled meeting he was still onsite at a house fire that occurred the previous night when our early morning meeting started. The house had been stuck by lightening and went up in flames quickly. The house was a total loss.

He then reverted back to our favorite insurance agent and stated, while thinking about the home owners, “I hope they were insured for replacement value.”

Business insurance can cover a loss for either market value or the cost to replace an asset.

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The aerospace sector weathered the global financial crisis relatively well, but confidence is still in short supply, according to an update from Aon Risk Solutions.

With passenger and revenue forecasts still relatively conservative, the firm’s 2011 Aerospace Insurance Market Outlook describes a soft market, driven by changing insurance strategies, falling exposure and the industry’s evolving risk profile.

Airport operators enjoyed the best results from the insurance markets in 2010/11, with lead premiums falling on average by 7%, while service providers experienced an average of 5% reduction in prices.

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Wondering what the best minds in money are tweeting about? Every other Tuesday we’ll fill you in on the conversation with Tuesday Money Tweets. You’ll get the 140 characters (or less!) of the financial wisdom you crave from around the Twitterverse.

@FlatOutFrugal: “By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.” –Agesilaus

@MoneyMag_Penny: Investors flocking to 529 college savings plans, says Financial Research Corp. Net flows up 75% over past 2 years.

@LaMonicaBuzz: Forget about Barney. Looks like Yahoo is the most hated purple dinosaur. $YHOO down another 4% today. Below $16

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Chubb Insurance conducted a survey and found that one in three people surveyed believed businesses were not doing enough to protect their employees from employment discrimination. This at a time when employment discrimination claims are skyrocketing. For 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reported 99,922 independent charges of employment discrimination filed with its offices. In 2007, prior to the 2008 financial markets failure, the number was 82,792.

When the economy worsened, layoffs occurred, and employers were less willing to make accommodations for those with age or disability issues.

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A new report has found that individual executives in health care are now being targeted in fraud cases that used to be reserved for corporations as a whole. The report, released by The Associated Press, revealed that federal enforcers are making it their business to blame the execs at the top of corporation chain for fraud issues related to Medicaid and Medicare.

Execs in Many Areas of Health Targeted

According to the AP report, the new tactic by the fed is to target the people in charge of running health-related companies when they detect fraud in relation to health insurance or health care.

This means the corporate execs in charge at drug companies, major health care enterprises, medical device manufacturers and even nursing home chains could be targeted if they are suspected of fraud.

This approach is a sharp contrast to previous fraud investigations where if a company was caught in a fraudulent act, lawyers would be able to negotiate a financial settlement, allowing the company to write a check to the government and promise never to break the rules again.

While this approach would let the company off the hook, the costs associated with the settlement would often be passed down to customers.

To avoid this issue, federal enforcers are now looking to have the companies pay fines and are pushing to have senior execs face criminal charges.

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