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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: The world might be flat, but construction costs aren’t

For the most part, construction has been a local story, a story about local workers building buildings in our community. But the story isn’t so local anymore. Global economic forces have begun to intersect with local issues at the construction site. The result: a significant and ongoing increase in construction costs across central Indiana and the rest of the United States-an increase that shows no signs of slowing. Through the first quarter of 2004, construction costs increased at a calm…

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Insurers thinking younger: Healthy, uninsured and 20? WellPoint, Golden Rule, others would like to sell you a policy

WellPoint Inc. and other insurers think they’ve found a hot new market-offering high-deductible individual health insurance policies to uninsured people who are young and healthy. It’s a market insurers historically may have overlooked, based on the misconception that uninsured people are poor and in bad health, said Dana McMurtry, vice president of health policy and analysis at WellPoint. Nationally, more than half the 45 million uninsured earn more than $25,000 a year and more than one-quarter top $50,000 annually, according…

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EYE ON THE PIE: How home buyers step off a cliff

Why does Indiana have such high bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosure rates? No one knows. Many say the economy in Indiana has been responsible for our troubles, but other states have been hit as hard and not had the same bankruptcy and foreclosure problems. Perhaps we are a state of dreamers, people who want to own a home but do not understand the obligations we assume. Our dreams are encouraged by the federal government, which allows mortgage interest and property tax…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Don’t make too much of July economic data

There are dates on the calendar that make some of us tremble. The Ides of March was a bad one, as I recall, for a certain Roman emperor long ago. Stock market traders know and fear those triplewitching days when futures and options contracts expire. But for those of us who track the regional economies around the state, it’s really a whole month that makes us sweat. It’s the month of July, thanks to the screwy data we receive for…

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Soldiers confront insurance obstacles: Health providers reluctant to accept Tricare coverage due to low reimbursement

Karen Welch had plenty of reasons to break out the worry beads last year, even before she dealt with Tricare, her new health insurance provider. The Zionsville resident was a month pregnant with her first child when she watched her husband, Travis, leave for Afghanistan with his Indiana National Guard unit. Then she learned she had to find a new primary care physician who would accept Tricare. She also needed an obstetrician/ gynecologist and a pediatrician in the netwowrk for…

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Questions follow Standard into new arena: Company boosts health services with several purchases

Standard Management Corp. followed the sale of one of its staple insurance businesses with a flurry of purchases this summer aimed at shifting its focus to health care services. Despite all the change, some constants remain for the struggling Indianapolis holding company: seven-figure quarterly losses and questions about its new direction. Standard completed the sale of Standard Life Insurance Company of Indiana to Louisville-based Capital Assurance Corp. in June for $79 million, then wasted little time spending some of the…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Let’s turn our children into assets

Could we reduce some of the major costs in our society if we had fewer children and more immigration from abroad? Think about it. Children, particularly those 15 to 19 years of age, are a major disruptive and expensive aspect of our nation. They establish behaviors that lead to lifelong misery for themselves and expenses for the rest of us. Teens get into all sorts of costly trouble. They lead police on dangerous chases because they will not obey the…

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NOTIONS: The faulty presumption of perpetual accessibility

I was in pain. I lost lots of blood. My blood sugar skyrocketed (I’m diabetic). In the wee hours that Friday morning, nurses pumped me full of morphine, injected me with insulin and watched my vital signs while doctors pressed and squeezed, pushed and prodded, and talked it all over in hushed tones. An hour before surgery, an anesthesiologist visited. He asked lots of questions about allergies and dental work. Then he warned me of potential doom-perhaps even death on…

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Safety Resources Inc.: Safety pays off for ex-engineer Clients look to local firm for training, advice

Clients look to local firm for training, advice Robert Baldwin repeatedly describes his business as keeping people safe and alive. At Safety Resources Inc., that translates to making sure workplace policies and practices meet or exceed government standards and clients’ employees are trained in the safest ways to work. That can mean anything from the proper operation of heavy construction machinery to the right floor wax to reduce slip-andfall accidents. After several years as a chemical engineer, Baldwin, 50, saw…

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Sourwine planning to sweeten its local office offerings: Second-generation real estate firm has two new buildings in the works that could nearly double its holdings

When Jim Sourwine was 4 years old, he would sit outside the closed door to his father’s home office and play with his toy cars. Barred from entering the adult-only world, sounds of paper shuffling and adding machine clacking piqued his interest in his family’s real estate business. “I wanted in,” Sourwine recalls. By the time he was old enough to file and wash windows for the firm, his father had moved Sourwine Real Estate Services out of his home…

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State bundles media buying: Firms here question whether small Fort Wayne-based agency can handle $10M contract

In a move that has rankled some central Indiana advertising agencies, Gov. Mitch Daniels’ office this month awarded a $10 million-$12 million media buying contract encompassing all state agencies to Fort Wayne-based Asher Agency. Asher in turn promised to save the state $900,000 in the coming year. The contract, a one-year deal with a oneyear renewal option, calls for Asher to place television, radio, print and outdoor advertising for the Hoosier Lottery, Indiana State Fair, Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, Office…

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Industry groups spar over audit proposal: Using parts of Sarbanes-Oxley Act to toughen financial reporting would be costly, unnecessary, NAMIC says

Insurance groups are choosing sides in a brewing battle over whether private insurance companies should be forced to adopt elements of the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Kansas City-based National Association of Insurance Commissioners has proposed adding parts of the 2002 federal legislation to its audit rules. Public companies are already required to follow the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposes stricter financial disclosure rules. The NAIC represents insurance regulators from all 50 states and is working jointly on the amendment with the…

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Industry making push for creation of state fraud unit: Indiana one of only 10 states without insurance fraud agency, but funding issues could be major obstacle

Members of the insurance industry have begun a campaign to bolster the state’s fight against fraud by targeting the creation of a bureau to help combat the crime. Indiana is one of only 10 states without an agency addressing insurance fraud, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. But the goal of the task force convened by Jim Atterholt, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Insurance, is to have a fraud bureau operating within his department sometime next…

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Defining success: Those who’ve tasted it share their thoughts on just exactly what ‘it’ is

How do you define career success? We posed that question to a variety of high-profile women and men in the Indianapolis business community. While the responses did confirm some of our preconceived notions-such as that men would mention financial rewards more often than women-there are far more similarities than differences, regardless of gender or profession. Still, “Career success is defined differently by each individual,” as Alex Slabosky, president and CEO of The Healthcare Group, so wisely put it; and as…

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Dose of OPPORTUNITY: Wellpoint, other health care insurers forge strategies to grab their share of Medicare drug-plan business

Afresh market that could be worth billions of dollars lies just over the horizon for health insurers like Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. Medicare, the U.S. government program for the elderly and disabled, will add a prescription drug benefit starting Jan. 1, and it could spend as much as $60 billion next year on medicines for 30 million people, according to Bloomberg News. But before insurers can start cashing in on this potential, they must develop their drug plans, win over some…

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SPORTS: Lance Armstrong miracle started here…or did it?

It is 10 a.m. on July 24 and, from several thousand miles and an ocean away, it is being reported that Lance Armstrong has, indeed, won his seventh consecutive-and last-Tour de France. I pick up the telephone and dial Dr. Lawrence Einhorn at his home here in Indianapolis. “What a way to go out,” says the doctor, the pleasure obvious in his voice. “And it still gives me goose bumps.” What a championship pairing: Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor. Lawrence Einhorn,…

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Baby doctors ready to bolt: Clarian North’s new north-side med center to lure business from St. Vincent, Community

Storm clouds are gathering to the north as St. Vincent Health applies the last coat of polish to its $19 million Women’s Hospital renovation. The Indianapolis hospital will lose an obstetrician-gynecology group that delivers as many as 1,440 babies a year shortly after it completes its expansion in September. The 10 doctors of Women’s Health Alliance plan to move offices and shift 80 percent of their practice to a new competitor, Clarian North Medical Center, a $285 million project scheduled…

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Counties, cities welcome food/beverage tax: Suburbs see extra funds as way to balance budgets

Several suburban cities and counties that have approved new food and beverage taxes view the windfall as a panacea for their budget woes. Six of the seven counties surrounding Marion County, excluding Morgan, have OK’d the 1-percent surcharge to help fund a new stadium for the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Convention Center expansion. Morgan County councilors turned down the measure at a June meeting. The legislation, approved during the past session, directs counties to contribute half the food and beverage…

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Manufacturers struggle with China’s risk, opportunity: Currency valuation one of many competitive issues

Eighteen months ago, 110 people worked for Swiss Plywood Co., a Tell City-based cabinet-maker in business since 1945. The average tenure was 17 years. Today, only 65 employees are left at the controls of Swiss Plywood’s machines. Chairman Bill Borders blames China. “We’ve weathered storms over the years,” Borders said. “But nothing approaching this.” Manufacturers in Indiana and across the nation have long complained about what they call Chinese currency manipulation. It’s one of a litany of grumbles about Chinese…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Brothers set example for today’s execs

Most of us know the fabled heroes of Bean Town. They include the Adams cousins (John and Sam). Paul Revere. The Kennedy brothers (John, Robert and Edward). Ted Williams, Carl Yazstremski, Bobby Orr, Bob Cousey, Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Tom Brady. Yet Boston’s most significant business heroes are not well-known today, at a time when their example could be most useful. Two brothers, Edward and Lincoln Filene, inherited their father’s department store in 1890. They spent the rest of…

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