You’re cool. You wear hip clothes. You get invited to the best parties. You drive the most popular car. Most of the time, you measure how cool you are by looking around and seeing what other people are doing. You don’t want to be the only person at the restaurant or the only one at the game. The same concept is true in the stock market. Investors want to own the hot stocks. A stock gets hot because it is…
Standard Management Corp. last week disclosed a new round of financial challenges and was hit with a lawsuit by a Kentucky company that bought its Standard Life Insurance subsidiary earlier this year. Louisville-based Capital Assurance Corp. accuses Standard Management of breaching terms of the contract to sell Standard Life and seeks a $652,126 refund, according to the lawsuit filed Nov. 14 in federal court in Indianapolis. Standard claims it owes only $43,000 in what it deems a “purchase-price adjustment dispute,”…
The Gulf Coast hurricanes may push construction costs sharply higher for several years, experts say, potentially adding millions of dollars in costs to the $625 million football stadium as well as other public projects in their early stages. “Even a 1-percent cost increase on a project like [the stadium] is significant, and the effects from these hurricanes is likely to be higher than that,” said Patrick Barkey, an economist and director of economic and policy studies at the Miller College…
Stephen Hilbert suffered another legal defeat last week. But don’t bet the founder and ex-CEO of Conseco Inc. is sitting around feeling sorry for himself. In fact, this fall Hilbert, 59, is quietly launching a major new business, one that will get him back into the acquisition game, a field he savored during his two decades atop Conseco. Details are sketchy, because Hilbert isn’t talking. But here’s what a little snooping turned up: Attorneys in July filed papers with the…
Taxes may be one of two guarantees in life. But that doesn’t mean we have no control over how much we pay. History shows we’ll go to great lengths to trim our tax bill. Since the U.S. government enacted the income tax shortly before World War I, Americans have been changing their behavior to avoid paying taxes. In most cases, people act in ethical and legal ways because the government creates a tax incentive to do certain things. IRA retirement…
“It’s just a matter of time.” At this point, the statement may reflect more hope than reality. The city’s main corridor is a concrete jungle through much of midtown, filled with parking lots, for-sale signs and buildings exhibiting nearly nonexistent design standards. However, a small-butgrowing number of developers is showing interest in revitalizing the main corridor through midtown. One of the newest plans would create a mixed-use development at 21st and Meridian streets called Meridian at 21. Local businessman Jeffrey…
A few months ago, Butler University announced that former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush would be among the speakers appearing on its Indianapolis campus during the school’s 2005-2006 sesquicentennial celebration. Within hours of the news breaking, my niece, a Butler junior and political science major, sent an e-mail asking if I’d like to join her for the first of these appearances, the one by Clinton on Nov. 8. Having long ago rounded up my fellow neighborhood kids for…
ome heart muscle had already died by the time family members coaxed the 50-something uninsured man into visiting Bloomington Hospital a few weeks ago. The patient had suffered severe chest pains two days before his hospital visit but didn’t seek treatment, said Dr. Rob Stone, an emergencyroom physician there. “It was clearly because he was afraid of the bill,” Stone said. By the time he made it to the hospital, the man was suffering a second heart attack. Now he…
I drove past the shrine at Clark and Addison in Chicago the day after the White Sox won the World Series. All was normal outside Wrigley Field. There was no evidence of the momentous event in Houston the night before. The White Sox and their fans do not exist for Cubs fans. There is an order to the world. For Hoosiers, people from Kentucky generally rank lower than folks from Pennsylvania. Yet we know Hoosiers don’t rank highly in the…
American Health Network started 2005 with no presence in the cancer-fighting field of oncology. Now the Indianapolis-based doctor network boasts the largest medical oncology practice in the state, said Dr. Ben Park, its president and CEO. Within the past several months, Park has watched his network add oncology practices with 32 locations across the state, 10 family physicians in Muncie, and a $4 million Fishers Medical Arts Building, built in partnership with Indianapolisbased OrthoIndy. He expects to see more growth….
Indiana state government will unveil a fresh approach to insurance coverage next year when it offers health savings accounts to its 33,000 employees and their dependents. The state wants employees to take more control of their health care and consequently harness spiraling costs, Personnel Director Debra Minott said. The high-deductible AnthemBy-Design plan it chose to accomplish that will be offered as one of five coverage options during an open enrollment that starts Oct. 31. “We really see a looming crisis…
A growing population is breeding more multimillion-dollar health care projects in Hendricks County. Danville-based Hendricks Regional Health will begin work next month on a $16 million medical office building more than a year after completing a $24.5 million hospital expansion, and St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers is staking its claim with a $4.7 million medical office under construction in Plainfield. Meanwhile, Clarian Health Partners plans to bulk up parts of the 76-bed hospital it opened just last year in…
ProLiance Energy LLC, already facing a $38.9 million judgment under a federal racketeering law, now is battling its insurer in court to collect more than $2 million in legal fees for its defense. New Jersey-based Executive Risk Specialty Insurance Co. not only refuses to pay the claim but also wants ProLiance to return $1.3 million in defense expenses paid before the February verdict on behalf of Huntsville Utilities in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The jury…
Hetrick last week won the Lawrence H. Einhorn, M.D. Award from the Little Red Door Cancer Agency. A cancer survivor himself, Hetrick was recognized, in part, for IBJ columns about people with cancer, especially his wife, Pam Klein, who died in March at 49. He also was honored for advocating anti-smoking legislation. Following are excerpts from his prepared acceptance remarks. I don’t deserve this award. I don’t wield a scalpel, administer chemotherapy, invent drugs, change bed pans, hold patients’ hands,…
One of two former Brightpoint Inc. employees charged this month in an accounting scandal has agreed to plead guilty in return for receiving a prison sentence of no more than 18 months. John Delaney, 40, former chief accounting officer of the wireless phone wholesaler, could end up spending far less time behind bars. In his nine-page plea agreement filed in federal court in Indianapolis, the U.S. Attorney’s Office says it will argue for a lesser sentence. Delaney on Oct. 13…
The Indiana Department of Insurance has boosted the outside help it uses to defend its medical malpractice Patients’ Compensation Fund after seeing a record payout this summer. A staff shortage, concern voiced by providers and a ruling that could lead to huge damage sums all spurred the move, said Amy Strati, who oversees the fund as the Insurance Department’s chief counsel. “The provider community has clearly said to us, ‘We want you using experienced [medical malpractice] attorneys on the complex…
Larry Dust capitalized on a then-radical health insurance concept 25 years ago that thrust him to the forefront of the corporate movement to outsource employee benefits services. Much has changed in the world of health care since, but Dust and Key Benefit Administrators Inc. continue to redefine the way employers approach insurance. “The cheese has moved in this business,” Dust said, “and if you don’t believe it, you better get out.” The 57-year-old Knox native entered the insurance industry after…
As anyone in the field of emergency management will tell you, the regrettably sluggish governmental response to the Hurricane Katrina natural and manmade disaster boils down to the argument over jurisdictions (a perennial challenge in the world of emergency management) and a gross lack of execution. As a result of the governmental infighting and dearth of critical decision-making in the early stages of this catastrophe, American citizens were victimized. People suffered, people died. In the analysis of the Hurricane Katrina…
After four years of double-digit rate hikes, average health care insurance premiums rose less than 10 percent in 2005. And they’re expected to rise less than 10 percent again in 2006, according to several national surveys. But excuse employers if they don’t get excited about the trend. They are still faced with having to pay much higher prices or trimming benefits-or both. Health care insurance premiums this year increased 9.2 percent, a 2-percent drop in the average increase from the…
Four months into his job as president of Conseco Insurance Group, Michael Dubes is explaining his strategy to return the subsidiary to profitability. Then, ice cream enters the conversation. Dairy Queen, he argued, continues to thrive despite an onslaught of competitors offering more expensive treats. The key to the franchise’s success is that it has never wavered from its middleincome target audience, Dubes said. He is applying the same simple tactic to grow the group’s portfolio of policyholders, while many…
