Home » Insurance

Insurance

Articles

Safeco weighs downtown exit; owners of insurer’s building market space

Insurance giant Safeco Corp. is expected to either vacate or scale back its downtown operation next year–a move that could
deal a major blow to the office market. At stake are about 700 downtown jobs, some or all of which could be eliminated or
shifted to the suburbs. A final decision about the fate of Safeco’s five-building downtown office complex likely will come
after Boston-based Liberty Mutual completes its $6.2 billion acquisition of Seattle-based Safeco.

Read More

Commentary: Can we Bank on Indianapolis?

Whoa. Those figures, based on national averages from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., don’t paint a pretty picture. People without bank accounts tend to keep cash at home or in their pockets, which increases the likelihood of crime. They create a market in which predatory lenders can thrive. They fail to reach their full potential, and so do the cities where they live. We have a problem. Now what can we do about it? We could take a cue from…

Read More

Benefits brokers dive deeper into wellness: Employers look to prevention to lower health costs

Gibson Insurance Group is the latest benefits broker to get more serious about wellness. The South Bend-based firm, which has an office in Indianapolis, has hired a dedicated wellness director to help its clients refine and assess their wellness programs for workers. Nicole Fallowfield, the former vice president of sales for Principal Wellness Co. in Indianapolis, will work out of Gibson’s downtown Indianapolis office but serve Gibson’s clients throughout Indiana. By hiring Fallowfield, Gibson joins a budding trend among brokers…

Read More

Commentary: Indiana law chases away talent

The Wellness Community of Central Indiana was established in 1995 as a not-for-profit organization to provide free support, education and hope to individuals and families affected by cancer. At The Wellness Community, cancer patients can share experiences and lend one another encouragement informally or through programs facilitated by professional counselors. The Wellness Community also provides a haven to grieve together in those instances when cancer is the ultimate victor. Today, the folks at The Wellness Community are grieving over a…

Read More

NOTIONS: A pregnant GOP primer on civil liberties: Who decides?

Years ago, I wrote an article about Sheila Suess Kennedy, an Indianapolis author who’d written a book called “What’s a Nice Republican Girl Like Me Doing in the ACLU?” I didn’t know Sheila. I didn’t know much about the American Civil Liberties Union, either. So I stopped by her office (she directed the organization’s Indiana chapter back then) for an education. Sheila, now a faculty member at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI, explained to…

Read More

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Green building not over when construction finishes

“Green” has fast become the metaphor for that new world we want to live in. We’ll have green jobs, drive green cars and live in green buildings made from green materials. The link between the environment and the color may seem obvious, but most artists will tell you that green is, by far, the most difficult color to master. Green isn’t one color. It’s made by mixing yellow and blue. Different proportions of yellow to blue produce a wide range…

Read More

Experts: Building boom not over: Big projects wind down, but new ones fill pipeline

The completion of $2 billion in city construction projects has left a gaping hole in contractor job schedules-as wide as when the roof opens at Lucas Oil Stadium. Even so, industry leaders remain optimistic about staying busy despite the combination of a tepid economy and the end of a local boom that stretched the limits of the labor pool. The $1.1 billion airport midfield terminal project, the $715 million stadium and $150 million Central Library expansion helped to create so…

Read More

Re-entry key in city’s plot to fight crime: Mayor makes push, hires director to help more ex-convicts find work

Makeba Averitte spent more than seven years incarcerated in Indiana, Kentucky and Oklahoma prisons paying for the robbery he committed as a young man with few prospects. Since his release in 2004, the 32-year-old has obtained a driver’s license and insurance on his automobile, not to mention a bit more wisdom. But what eludes him most-even more so now as a convicted felon-is a steady, goodpaying job. Tired of temporary work, he enrolled in Second Chance at the United Northeast…

Read More

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Laptop hell: Air travel can bounce, bungle data

Travel may broaden the mind, but it’s hell on laptops. If your laptop suffers some kind of death-dealing blow, it’ll probably be on the road. Air travel is the worst. You’re required during security screening to pull your laptop out of its snug little protective cover and submit it to the tender mercies of the Transportation Security Administration’s conveyors, X-ray machines and employees. Then there’s the jostling scramble to put it back in on the far side of the screening…

Read More

Carmel startup wades into Florida hurricane market: Firm pioneers product to cover insurance deductibles

The turbulent winds that hit the property-casualty insurance market after the destructive Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 have blown over Indiana with hardly a bent weather vane. But that hasn’t stopped a new Carmel company from trying to make a buck helping Florida homeowners and businesses handle their now-staggering insurance costs. This month, Citon Group Inc. started marketing its new breed of insurance-designed to cover hurricane deductibles-to Florida insurance agents. “We’re really at the very beginning of this….

Read More

Doc pay-for-performance program set to launch: Quality Health First signs up Anthem, 700 doctors

After four years of development, a payfor-performance plan for Indianapolisarea doctors will officially launch Oct. 1. Quality Health First, the latest service of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, now has 700 primary-care doctors signed up to receive its reports on the quality of the care they give. And perhaps even more important, the program has contracted with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana as the first health insurer to offer bonus payments to doctors based on how well…

Read More

Billiondollar chance: OneAmerica foresees huge growth opportunity in long-term-care policies thanks to new tax breaks

That’s when new tax benefits kick in for an unusual kind of long-term-care insurance, called asset-based longterm care. The Indianapolisbased life insurer is betting those tax breaks send a wave of money flooding toward asset-based long-term-care policies, which one of its subsidiaries has sold for nearly 20 years. With people living longer and the 70 million baby boomers aging, the need to pay for long-term care, such as in-home elder care and assisted-living facilities, is sure to rise. “We see…

Read More

Indiana auto insurance rates show uptick, report says: Despite rise, state still among cheapest in nation

Auto insurance rates are climbing nationally, led by increases in Indiana that topped all other states, according to a report released last month by Insurance.com. The online auto insurance agency said the lowest car insurance quotes, on average, jumped 3.4 percent, to $1,893 per year, from the first quarter to the second. Rate increases in Indiana nearly doubled the national average, rising 6.7 percent, or $94, to $1,501. Arkansas and Rhode Island followed, with 6.1-percent and 5-percent spikes, respectively. Sam…

Read More

Ex-WellPoint VP sues, says he was axed for testifying in drug case

WellPoint Inc. prides itself on working to hold down the rising cost of health care. But to hear one of its former vice
presidents tell it, the company retaliated against him when he worked to do just that. In a lawsuit against
WellPoint, Dr. Randy Axelrod claims his former employer forced him out when he tried to curtail a drugmaker’s
controversial pricing strategy that was costing WellPoint money.

Read More

Slump leaves empty feeling for subdivision residents: Developers struggling to finish what they started

The marketing material for the Sedona Woods community in Fishers boasts that once word gets out, home lots are sure to sell out quickly. In hindsight, the statement couldn’t have been further off the mark. Roughly four years later, the subdivision that ultimately was to contain hundreds of homes built by Davis Homes LLC remains unfinished. And now, after the local builder ceased operations in late July, completion could take even longer. Sedona Woods at Promise Road and 136th Street…

Read More

Murky motive adds intrigue to Old National loan saga

In the buttoned-down world of banking, it doesn't get much stranger than this: An Indianapolis loan officer with a strong reputation is suddenly dismissed after his employer charges he falsified lending documents. The bank says the fraud exposes it to potential losses approaching $20 million. And here's the kicker: The employer hasn't accused the banker of committing the wrongdoing for personal gain.

Read More

Slump leaves empty feeling for subdivision residents: Developers struggling to finish what they started

The marketing material for the Sedona Woods community in Fishers boasts that once word gets out, home lots are sure to sell out quickly. In hindsight, the statement couldn’t have been further off the mark. Roughly four years later, the subdivision that ultimately was to contain hundreds of homes built by Davis Homes LLC remains unfinished. And now, after the local builder ceased operations in late July, completion could take even longer. Sedona Woods at Promise Road and 136th Street…

Read More

BEHIND THE NEWS: Murky motive adds intrigue to Old National loan saga

In the buttoneddown world of banking, it doesn’t get much stranger than this: An Indianapolis loan officer with a strong reputation is suddenly dismissed after his employer charges he falsified lending documents. The bank says the fraud exposes it to potential losses approaching $20 million. And here’s the kicker: The employer hasn’t accused the banker of committing the wrongdoing for personal gain. There are no allegations, for instance, of setting up fictitious borrowers to scoop up bank cash on his…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Why Indiana’s AAA bond rating should please all of us

Sometimes, obscure economic issues matter a great deal to our economic well-being. One example is the news that Indiana’s bond rankings have risen to the highest level, the highly coveted AAA ranking from Standard and Poor’s. Why that happened, what it means and why it is important should matter to Hoosiers. To begin with, all states, like virtually all households, borrow money to ease cash flow issues. States also borrow money to make infrastructure investments. The government essentially takes out…

Read More

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Genetic info act will do more than stop discrimination

The promise of personalized medicine-genetic tests that allow more informed and individualized health care decisions-has been blocked in recent times as patients struggle with the fear that those same genetic test results could bring genetic discrimination in the form of cancelled health insurance coverage or even the catastrophe of job loss. In 1997, Indiana enacted a state law protecting genetic screening or testing and prohibiting health insurers from considering any information obtained from such testing in a manner adverse to…

Read More