Drivers get new insurer; Progressive to sell policies in Mass.
Byline: Bob Kievra The Progressive Corp., the country's third-largest automobile insurer, said it filed plans yesterday to sell automobile insurance in Massachusetts but would restrict sales to the Internet for at least the first 11 months. State regulators, lawmakers and trade associations cheered the news,...

Auto law changes attract insurer; Peerless left 20 years ago.
Byline: Bob Kievra The following correction was published Nov. 17, 2007: Ohio-based Progressive Group of Insurance Cos. does not write private passenger auto insurance in Massachusetts but has offered commercial auto insurance here since January. A description of the company's state operations was incorrect in...

Captives Revisited.
After a January of firmer rates and tougher underwriting, corporate risk and insurance executives are viewing the captive option with more interest and urgency, as domiciles from Bermuda to Cayman to Vermont continue to see growth in captive formations--while newer domiciles struggle for market share. Whoosh! ...

Dilbertian exclusions.
Writing insurance humor is a fine art. It's insurance school for four years, and then comedy school for 30 more, before you're any good at it. The underlying problem is that insurance is dull, and humor is funny. So the Insurance Humorists' Local 108 asked me to convey a...

Drivers: The Critical Component of Fleet Safety.
The majority of severe fleet claims are the result of driver actions under normal driving conditions. An effective fleet risk management program should address these issues, as well as those related to recruiting and retaining the best drivers. Truck liability losses continue to rise. Million dollar loss...

Business briefs.
COLUMN: BUSINESS BRIEFS TELEGRAM & GAZETTE Bloomberg Index Central Massachusetts +0.61 175.17 Volume: 62,161,766 Up: 7 Down: 17 Unchanged: 8 Gainer: Cytyc Corp. $32.55 +$1.26 (volume of 4.04 million...

Insurance insights: common insurance mistakes.
As busy music professionals and business owners, sometimes there are numerous business issues that have to be completed before you even can begin teaching. Setting up the studio, ordering music, purchasing instruments, scheduling appointments and much more is involved just to get started. With all these items that have...

CORRECTIONS.
COLUMN: CORRECTIONS Tower Hill Botanic Garden Winter Open House and African Violet Re-potting Clinic will not be held today. The event was held on Nov. 11. Because of a clerical error, the wrong date was in the Living section of Thursday's paper. NORTHAMPTON - The...

Spoiling for a fight over TRIA: the Bush administration wants to shift the risk of terrorism losses away from the government and onto the insurance industry. That's not sitting well with carriers, but there appears to be room for compromise.
While the insurance world may have hoped for an easy solution from the Bush administration on the renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, federally backed guarantees connected to terrorism losses, all it got was a nasty fight and a lot of work to do on Capitol Hill. ...

Insurance MarketWatch.
Insurance Services Office Inc. has unveiled ISO MarketWatch, which offers quarterly reports on state and national price changes for general liability insurance. The reports will be based on actual policies from more than 50 participating insurance companies. The product can be used for measuring the effect of pricing cycles,...