Insurance

Maryland's attorney general, seeking to put to rest questions from the Baltimore City Council president, confirmed that state law allows auto insurance to be priced according to where a driver lives.In a letter sent late Tuesday to City Council President Mary Pat Clarke, Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. said, "We have no basis on which to advise that the law is any different than it was when [approved] by my predecessors" in 1977 and 1982.The letter was prompted by Ms. Clarke's objection to a ruling Monday by Insurance Commissioner John A. Donaho.

Ronald G. Clark, a retired insurance company adjuster and former Rising Sun resident, died of heart failure May 14 at a hospital in Tampa, Fla. He was 69. Mr. Clark was born and raised in Baltimore and graduated in 1954 from Polytechnic Institute. He attended what was then Baltimore Junior College before being drafted into the Marine Corps during the Korean War. He was a city police officer for several years before working for several insurance companies as an adjuster. He had been employed by the Harleysville Insurance Co. for a decade before leaving in 1994 and moving to Tampa, where he had worked part time as a security officer for Wackenhut Security Services.

Almore Jackson "Jack" Emery, a retired insurance company executive and neighborhood activist, died of heart failure Thursday at Union Memorial Hospital. The Stoneleigh resident was 79. Mr. Emery was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised in Yonkers, N.Y. At 17, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1944 and trained as a B-29 tail-gunner, but did not go overseas for combat duty. After World War II, he enrolled in Hunter College and earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1950. He sold insurance in New York City before moving to Rodgers Forge in 1957.

ANNAPOLIS -- Marylanders would be able to sue their insurance companies for punitive damages if the companies acted in bad faith under a bill the Senate passed yesterday.The insurance industry objects strenuously to the measure, which the insurers say could subject them to millions of dollars in lawsuits and result in higher premiums for consumers.The bill passed the Senate 26-20, but it was reconsidered minutes later. It again passed, 24-22, exactly the constitutional majority."The bill will result in skyrocketing insurance rates and destroy our ability to fight fraud," said David Snyder, a vice president with the State Farm Insurance Cos.But Sen. John A. Pica Jr., D-Baltimore, the bill's sponsor, said it would correct a flaw in Maryland's law that, in effect, prohibits consumers from collecting anything from their insurers beyond the limits of their policies.

The battle over who should pay for $110 million in health-related insurance claims began yesterday between CSXTransportation Inc. and a group of insurance companies, with both sides arguing the other was responsible for the bill.Neither side disputes the final tab, which stems from more than 20,000 job-related hearing loss claims that have been paid by CSX. The issue, however, is whether the company's insurers should be forced to pay.The case, which began opening arguments in Baltimore County Circuit Court yesterday, stems from a lawsuit originally filed by Continental Insurance Co. and later joined by 18 other insurers.

ANNAPOLIS -- A group of Schaefer administration bills that would give the state authority to regulate currently untouchable segments of the insurance industry, and allow it to rehabilitate companies on the brink of collapse, passed a House committee yesterday, a clear sign of victory in the full House.The action by the House Economic Matters Committee sends to the House this week almost the entire package of insurance legislation submitted by Gov. William Donald Schaefer. Only a bill addressing consumer fraud against insurers has yet to clear the committee.

ANNAPOLIS -- A package of bills intended to protect Maryland citizens against insurance insolvencies eased through a Senate committee yesterday with hardly a hitch.HTC But because the bills, submitted on behalf of Gov. William Donald Schaefer, were amended slightly by the Senate Finance Committee before they were passed, the differences will have to be worked out with the committee's counterpart in the House, the Economic Matters Committee.The bills would:* Give Maryland's insurance commissioner broader authority to take control of a company threatened with insolvency and increase the examinations of insurers from at least one every five years to once every three years.

New YORK -- If you're buying an annuity or life insurance policy, or thinking of switching from one you have now, insurance company safety ratings matter more than ever. On average, the industry is somewhat stronger financially than it was a year ago, says Martin Weiss, head of the rating organization, Weiss Research in West Palm Beach, Fla. But many individual insurers face two increasing risks.Money-losing commercial real estate is a "growing and dangerous problem," especially for some large insurers who lent heavily to developers, says Michael Albanese, assistant vice president for the A.M. Best Co., the oldest insurance rating organization.

HOW IS IT that Maryland, home of Angelos, Saiontz, Kirk, Miles and 39 members of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, which calls itself "the most prestigious group of trial lawyers in the United States," has avoided the malpractice-insurance blowup? Decent government, smart doctors and responsible insurance executives. To be more precise, Maryland owes its relatively favorable malpractice-insurance outcome to the fact that it has avoided, intentionally or not, imitating New Jersey. New Jersey is one of a dozen states that the American Medical Association claims is in malpractice-coverage "crisis."

NEW YORK - The attorneys general of New York and Connecticut told a Senate subcommittee yesterday that the suspected abuses they found in the insurance industry reveal the need for more federal oversight. "The bright light that Congress can shine on this morass of corrupt and corrosive practices could be absolutely critical," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told a subcommittee of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "Congress could give it a national airing." Campaigns for more federal control have gained support in Congress since New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's suit last month against Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., the world's largest insurance broker, for allegedly colluding with insurers and stifling competition.