Insurance Industry

Gov. Parris N. Glendening said yesterday he will ask the General Assembly to require health insurers to cover anti-smoking medications and treatment -- a proposal likely to draw opposition from the industry and from lawmakers when they meet next month.Accepting an award in Annapolis from anti-smoking advocates, Glendening called on health plans to help pay for the drugs and counseling smokers need to quit."Someone told me the insurance companies are going to fight us on this," Glendening said.

The rates Baltimore-area drivers pay for the same six-month car insurance policy vary by as much as $764, the second-highest figure in the nation, according to a survey commissioned by one of the state's largest car insurance providers.And even though some experts said those numbers are overstated, the survey points out the need to do comparison shopping when looking for auto insurance, said Progressive Auto Insurance, which released the findings yesterday.Nationally, six-month rates varied an average of $481.

BILL Bradley, in his 18 years in the Senate, had a reputation for extreme caution. He not only looked before he leaped in taking positions on controversial issues, but he also sometimes did a fair imitation of a guy putting his ear to the ground before crossing the railroad tracks to make sure a train wasn't coming.Last spring, as he conducted his low-profile campaign for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination, he settled for being a listener to voters, turning aside reporters' inquiries for details of his agenda with promises he would spell them out later.

Health insurance industry representatives urged Maryland's insurance commissioner yesterday to allow the free market to control rising prescription drug plan premiums and the growing use of benefit caps rather than resorting to government intervention."

Aegon USA yesterday told employees that it will remain and expand in downtown Baltimore through 2002, but the company left open the possibility it might consolidate more than 1,000 workers outside Baltimore because of changes taking place in the insurance industry.In committing to the city, the nation's ninth-largest insurer will expand into a vacant, six-story office and warehouse building at 205 W. Centre St. once occupied by retailer Hochschild, Kohn & Co. and the Bank of Baltimore.As part of the move, the North American subsidiary of giant Dutch insurer Aegon N. V. will shift 300 employees in its Special Markets Group to the 225,000-square-foot building by May. "Our new office location provides us with the much-needed space to accommodate our current business as well as our future growth," said Bart Herbert Jr., president of Aegon USA's Special Markets Group, who broke the news to employees at the Belvedere Hotel yesterday morning.

PARIS -- President Clinton was elected in 1992 promising to give the United States a needed national-health insurance system. The battle that followed pitted advocates of a single-payer state system, on the Canadian or European models, against the private insurance industry, ending in a qualified victory for the latter.Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, wrote in the New York Times a few days ago that the original Clinton proposals "would have limited our choice in doctors, cost millions of jobs and created new bureaucracies and tax increases."

WASHINGTON -- In President Clinton's first term, Republican and insurance industry strategists successfully convinced the public that the broad Clinton effort to reform health care and bring "universal" coverage to all Americans was nothing more than a bid to create a huge new federal bureaucracy. Its defeat was Mr. Clinton's worst legislative setback.Now, Republican and tobacco industry strategists have pulled off a similar success in arguing that Mr. Clinton and publichealth activists, in the national tobacco control bill just squelched in the Senate, were really motivated by a quest for more taxes to spend on pet projects, rather than to reduce teen smoking.

An article in the Business section on Jan. 7 mischaracterized recent auto insurance rate increases for State Farm Insurance policyholders. The company raised auto insurance rates last year by as much as 44 percent in some parts of the state.The Sun regrets the error.Insurance industry advocates told state regulators yesterday that proposed regulations for companies filing home and auto insurance rate increases of 15 percent or more could raise costs and lead to higher premiums for policyholders.

The life insurance industry and privacy advocates clashed yesterday before a General Assembly committee over the uses and potential abuses of genetic information -- a topic one witness described as "the issue of the new millennium."The House Environmental Matters Committee heard calls from the sponsors of legislation to restrict the use of genetic information about individuals to "get out front" on an issue that is drawing increasing interest in state legislatures nationwide.But Roberta B. Meyer, senior counsel of the American Council of Life Insurance, testified that the legislation would interfere with the industry's essential function of determining risk.

Visionary Art Museum was the only one openIt is ironic that City Life Museum, which has been struggling for money, chose to be closed for New Year's Day, on a day when many people had off and time to visit our many museums in Baltimore.The Baltimore Museum of Art was also closed.Still looking for a museum to visit, my husband and I took a chance on the Visionary Art Museum. It was open. We went, and we will return again.It was because of the private funding that we thought the AVAM might be open.

Will President Barack Obama and Congress pass comprehensive health care reform this year? Yes 24% No 68% Not sure 8% (2,351 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Videos depicting members of Congress being shouted down at town hall meetings by health care reform opponents are making the rounds on the Internet and the TV news. Are these protests genuine or are they orchestrated by Republicans and the insurance industry? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

For math proficiency, teach students to add better In response to "Student math doesn't add up" (July 12) and the three responses that followed, I would like to reiterate a basic suggestion correctly made by Liz Bowie and bypassed by Higher Education Secretary James Lyons that proficiency in arithmetic is key. Please don't get distracted by the sociopolitical demand for more college math courses, because the result of not addressing the fundamentals is...

Insurance companies doing business in Maryland will have to disclose their histories of slavery-related insurance before 1865, under a bill signed into law this week. Similar initiatives have become law in California, Illinois and Iowa, and advocates say the mandatory disclosures will add to public knowledge of the slave-era economy in Maryland. "As a genealogist and someone interested in my own history, this allows me to look at records that perhaps are not public records and that are held by insurance companies," said Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a Baltimore Democrat who sponsored the bill unanimously passed by the General Assembly this year.

Aberdeen Proving Ground signs first BRAC tenant A business park under construction outside the north entrance of Aberdeen Proving Ground has signed its first tenant related to federal base restructuring, the park's developer said yesterday. Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties Trust said it has a long-term lease with the MITRE Corp. for 54,000 square feet in the first building under way in North Gate Business Park. The three-story building is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of next year.

The private auto insurance industry objected yesterday to a rate-lowering proposal from the state's insurer of last resort, arguing that the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund's plan to make coverage more affordable puts the private sector at unacceptable risk. After a 2 1/2-hour hearing in Baltimore, insurance Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler delayed his decision to give both sides more time to provide written information, according to officials with the Maryland Insurance Administration. Tyler's decision is expected within several weeks.

Howard M. Metzenbaum, 90 Ex-U.S. senator from Ohio Former Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat who was a self-made millionaire before he began a long career fighting big business in the Senate, died last night. Metzenbaum died at his home near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Joel Johnson, his former chief of staff. No cause was given. During 18 years on Capitol Hill, from 1977 to 1995, Metzenbaum came to be known as "Senator No" and "Headline Howard" for his abilities to block legislation and get publicity for himself.

Donald J. Shepard remembers taking over the reins of Dutch insurer Aegon NV during turbulent times for the insurance industry, which was suffering from high credit losses in the post 9/11 economy. Six years later, as he prepares to retire, the economy is in a mess again. This time, it's for different reasons - subprime mortgage problems. But despite beginning and ending his tenure as CEO in rocky economic times, Shepard said he feels he's left Aegon in better shape than he found it. "It's been a good time and we've continued to strengthen this company," he said in a phone interview from the Netherlands yesterday, as Aegon released earnings for the final time during his tenure.

Richard Lee Eliff, a retired insurance executive and former longtime Parkville resident, died of prostate cancer Jan. 8 at his home in Jupiter, Fla. He was 84. Mr. Eliff was born at his home on Orlando Avenue in Hamilton. He was a 1941 graduate of City College and enlisted in the Army at age 19. He served in the European Theater as a technician with the 38th Traffic Regulating Group and was discharged with the rank of technician fifth grade in 1946. He attended Loyola College on the GI Bill and earned a bachelor's degree in business in 1950.

Jacqueline C. Boyle, office manager of Transamerica Life Insurance Co.'s Weinberg Brokerage Group for 38 years, died of cancer complications Thursday at her Lutherville home. She was 61. Born in Baltimore and raised on O'Donnell Street in Canton, she was a 1964 graduate of Patterson High School and began her work in the life insurance industry as a brokerage clerk. "During her 38-year career, she processed many billions of dollars in life insurance pollicies," said her employer, Peter Weinberg.

As insurance companies retreat from their coverage of coastal areas along the Eastern Seaboard, legislators in Annapolis and other state capitals are stepping in to protect homeowners faced with fewer and fewer options. Maryland legislators have grilled insurance executives at hearings and introduced bills that would force companies to cover all areas of the state. Lawmakers also are looking at granting the state's top regulator more authority over the industry, and offering tax breaks to encourage residents to safeguard their homes against storm damage.