| Question of hail insurance resurfaces after storm
Like other farmers in the aftermath of a damaging hailstorm, Cook will ponder anew the necessity of carrying hail damage insurance.
"I haven't carried hail insurance in the 50 years that I've farmed, but I haven't had this kind of damage before," the 72-year-old Cook said. "You can always ask yourself that question after a storm. But I'll be OK. I've had enough good years and I'll be back farming next year." But he added, "I'm pretty sure I'll recommend to my three sons that they buy hail insurance in the future. At their ages and stages of life, they should have it."
Sunday's hailstorm cut like a sharp knife along a 10- to 15-mile corridor from Webster to Grundy counties, through some of the most productive farmland in Iowa.
The portion of Cook's farms hit hardest have a crop suitability rating of 84, which puts it in the high end of soil productivity.
Insurance held in prepaid-funeral fraud case
The director of two Austin-based insurance companies has been arrested on fraud charges in connection with the sale of prearranged funeral services. Randall Sutton, 63, is charged with felony counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering in an indictment returned in St. Louis. Federal authorities accuse him of involvement in a financial scam that diverted money from customers’ policies for other uses. A message left on Sutton’s home phone was not returned. His indictment was made public one day after a lawsuit was filed seeking to recover more than $600 million in damages from the collapse of Missouri-based National Prearranged Services, which partnered with the two Austin companies that wrote the policies. The two companies, Lincoln Memorial Life Insurance and Memorial Service Life Insurance, were shut down by Texas regulators last year after the regulators determined that National Prearranged, one of the largest sellers of prepaid funeral contracts, could not meet its obligations.
Moody's maintains A3 long-term issuer rating on AIG after insurer
Moody's Investors Service today said it would keep its A3 long-term issuer rating on American International Group Inc. after the insurance company reported its first quarterly profit in nearly two years. New York-based AIG reported a second-quarter profit of $1.8 billion, or $2.30 a share, compared with a loss of $5.36 billion, or $41.13 a share a year earlier, and a loss of $4.35 billion, or $1.98 per diluted share, in the first quarter. Although operating income has fallen at AIG's General Insurance and Life Insurance & Retirement Services divisions, the two segments showed some signs of stabilization or slight improvement between the first and second quarters, according to a report from a group of Moody's analysts. Operating income before net realized capital losses rose to $1 billion for AIG's General Insurance segment, from $446 million in the first quarter.
Norristown insurance agent charged with fraud
State investigators have charged a 61-year-old Norristown insurance agent with bilking 14 clients out of $45,000 in premiums for policies he never bought. Attorney General Tom Corbett's office identified the agent yesterday as Brian Johnson of Congress Road. Johnson owns Valley Forge Insurance Group Inc., an agency formerly at 102-C W. Germantown Pike, Norristown. The business is now at 401 W. Johnson Highway in East Norriton Township. Johnson can continue doing business while his case is being heard, said Lauren C. Bozart, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office. According to a complaint, Johnson took money from the clients, ages 75 to 96, but never sent it to insurance carriers for life insurance and long-term care policies. Johnson is charged with 14 counts each of theft and related charges, plus one count of insurance fraud, Corbett said.
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