In this case, the truth is the library has started an insurance fiction collection. The University of Connecticut School of Law is already ahead of us in this respect, but we're starting to play catch up. Our Director, Jean Lucey, has wanted to start a fiction section since Sue Grafton's mystery series starring Kinsey Milhone, former investigator for California Fidelity Insurance, came out. Last Christmas she got her wish when all of the "alphabet series" was added to the collection (U is for Undertow had just been published).
This year, a few more books were added to the collection including, The Pale Green Horse, Horse Sense, Bet Your Life and Bringing Back Eight: A Novel about Medical Malpractice on Trial. We've also added our first dvd to the collection, Memento. We encourage you to come in and read or check out some of our newest additions.
If you have suggestions for the fiction section, we welcome your feedback (either via a comment on this blog post or email). We also welcome donations either to our fiction section or to our general collection. If you're looking for ideas on books that we're especially interested in, please peruse our amazon wish list.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The Whole Pie
The Massachusetts Attorney General publishes a Report on Professional Solicitations for Charities annually. This year's report has caused a stir (at least in the Boston Globe) since it reports that charities received only 43% of the money that was raised; the rest went to the professional fundraisers.
Last year New York's Attorney General brought a case against four professional fundraising telemarketers who employed deceptive and unfair tactics. These deceptive tactics included in some cases lying about how much of the money the charity would receive. It turned out, on average, these professional fundraisers were keeping 76% of the money they raised.
All is not lost though, there are various ways that one can determine the amount a charity will receive. Sometimes this information is right on the charity's website. You can also ask for the information from the telemarketer in writing. Finally, checking to see if the fundraiser is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals can help. This association has a code of ethics to which they ascribe.
Another way to determine generally how much of the money you give to a charity goes toward furthering their mission is to check a website like Charity Navigator. It will give you and idea of the charity's organizational efficiency, organizational capacity as well as an income statement usually including how much the ceo is paid.
We thought that this might be a timely post considering the recent series of Boston Globe articles on the topic. We want to assure you that our library does not use professional fundraisers. As we mentioned in a past post, we are a non-profit and there are a number of ways that you can donate to the library before the end of the year. The most direct way is probably through our annual fund, which you can donate to by clicking here.
Last year New York's Attorney General brought a case against four professional fundraising telemarketers who employed deceptive and unfair tactics. These deceptive tactics included in some cases lying about how much of the money the charity would receive. It turned out, on average, these professional fundraisers were keeping 76% of the money they raised.
All is not lost though, there are various ways that one can determine the amount a charity will receive. Sometimes this information is right on the charity's website. You can also ask for the information from the telemarketer in writing. Finally, checking to see if the fundraiser is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals can help. This association has a code of ethics to which they ascribe.
Another way to determine generally how much of the money you give to a charity goes toward furthering their mission is to check a website like Charity Navigator. It will give you and idea of the charity's organizational efficiency, organizational capacity as well as an income statement usually including how much the ceo is paid.
We thought that this might be a timely post considering the recent series of Boston Globe articles on the topic. We want to assure you that our library does not use professional fundraisers. As we mentioned in a past post, we are a non-profit and there are a number of ways that you can donate to the library before the end of the year. The most direct way is probably through our annual fund, which you can donate to by clicking here.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Burning Interest in Punitive Damages
In Massachusetts yesterday a jury awarded 71 million dollars when they found a tobacco company liable for the death of Marie Evans. The full story can be found in the Boston Globe, among other places. It turns out that the tobacco company in question, "Lorillard had never lost a case brought by an individual before yesterday" While the tobacco company is appealing the case, there is speculation that more cases may follow as a result of this one.
Apparently "the verdict sets up a second phase of deliberations in which the jury could also award Evans’s estate and family punitive damages, which often are a multiple of the amounts awarded in the compensatory phase." Insurance coverage for punitive damages is actually an interesting topic. By interesting, I mean it is a topic that is worthy of many articles full of discussion as well as a few books. Clearly we don't have the space to explore all of the ramifications here in a little blog post, but a section from The Thomson West Publication: Punitive Damages Law and Practice by John J. Kircher and Christine M. Wiseman sheds some light on how convoluted a topic it is.
If you're interested in more information on punitive damages or products liability, please feel free to email the library with your specific question or stop by and check out our collection.
Apparently "the verdict sets up a second phase of deliberations in which the jury could also award Evans’s estate and family punitive damages, which often are a multiple of the amounts awarded in the compensatory phase." Insurance coverage for punitive damages is actually an interesting topic. By interesting, I mean it is a topic that is worthy of many articles full of discussion as well as a few books. Clearly we don't have the space to explore all of the ramifications here in a little blog post, but a section from The Thomson West Publication: Punitive Damages Law and Practice by John J. Kircher and Christine M. Wiseman sheds some light on how convoluted a topic it is.
The question of insurance coverage for punitive damages continues to plague the courts, insurers, and insureds. The trend appears to favor finding coverage, but the decisions have not persuasively decided the issue. In fact, they have more recently enhanced the controversy by positing additional arguments both in support of and in opposition to coverage. (pp 7-38-7-39)
They go on to discuss the reasoning behind punitive damages and explore whether insurance coverage hinders those motives:
In most jurisdictions, punitive damages are intended to be awarded not to compensate the injured, but to punish the wrongdoer and to deter the wrongdoer and others from similar egregious conduct. Once it is determined that punitive damages are covered by the policy terms, courts then face the issue whether coverage would frustrate the public policy involved in the punishment and deterrence considerations of the punitive damages. (pp 7-42-7-43)
If you're interested in more information on punitive damages or products liability, please feel free to email the library with your specific question or stop by and check out our collection.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Vertically Challenged
We noticed in the stats section of our blog, that some people had happened upon our blog using the search terms "vertical liability." Turns out we're third from the top on the Google search for that term because of our brief post on products liability where we mentioned that we had vertical files with subject information.
Unfortunately, I am not sure exactly what the searchers were looking for. The term vertical liability is not, as far as I know, standard language in insurance. One possibility for what might be of interest is supply-chain liability. In other words, what is the liability for the person up or down the chain if there's been a loss at some point in the chain. While I am sure we could provide more information on the topic, if pressed, it seems like the best plan is to try and avoid losses like this in the first place. As it says on the Risk and Insurance Management Society website: "supply chain management can stop supplier issues from becoming your own." To this end, Risk Management Magazine published an article in their April edition titled: How Spend Analysis Can Reduce Supply Chain Risk: Domino effect They also had a great article in August of 2008 entitled: Understanding Supply Chain Risk which included helpful flow charts.
Another possible topic of interest might have been vertical exhaustion of limits which has to do with the interaction of primary policies and excess or umbrella insurance policies. Vertical exhaustion of limits is described in a July 2002 article in Defense Counsel Journal as such: "vertical exhaustion allows an insured to seek coverage from an excess insurer as long as the insurance policies immediately beneath that excess policy, as identified in the excess policy's declaration page, have been exhausted, regardless of whether other primary insurance may apply." It turns out that vertical exhaustion of limits is actually somewhat controversial. Most case law appears to support horizontal exhaustion of limits, which requires exhausting the limits of ALL primary insurance which might apply before an insured can turn to his excess policies. The Defense Counsel Journal article described above and entitled Excess-Primary Insurer Obligations and the Rights of The Insured by Thomas M. Hamilton and Troy A. Stark addresses this issue quite well. For more up to date information on the topic, you might try getting your hands on a Donald Malecki article from the December 2008 edition of Malecki on Insurance entitled Horizontal Versus Vertical Exhaustion of Limits (found in a subscribers forum issue). He provides case law from 2007 and 2008 on the topic as well as his expert opinion.
While we'll continue to look at the stats for possible areas of interest, we also welcome suggestions for future blog posts. You can email the library or post a comment!
Unfortunately, I am not sure exactly what the searchers were looking for. The term vertical liability is not, as far as I know, standard language in insurance. One possibility for what might be of interest is supply-chain liability. In other words, what is the liability for the person up or down the chain if there's been a loss at some point in the chain. While I am sure we could provide more information on the topic, if pressed, it seems like the best plan is to try and avoid losses like this in the first place. As it says on the Risk and Insurance Management Society website: "supply chain management can stop supplier issues from becoming your own." To this end, Risk Management Magazine published an article in their April edition titled: How Spend Analysis Can Reduce Supply Chain Risk: Domino effect They also had a great article in August of 2008 entitled: Understanding Supply Chain Risk which included helpful flow charts.
Another possible topic of interest might have been vertical exhaustion of limits which has to do with the interaction of primary policies and excess or umbrella insurance policies. Vertical exhaustion of limits is described in a July 2002 article in Defense Counsel Journal as such: "vertical exhaustion allows an insured to seek coverage from an excess insurer as long as the insurance policies immediately beneath that excess policy, as identified in the excess policy's declaration page, have been exhausted, regardless of whether other primary insurance may apply." It turns out that vertical exhaustion of limits is actually somewhat controversial. Most case law appears to support horizontal exhaustion of limits, which requires exhausting the limits of ALL primary insurance which might apply before an insured can turn to his excess policies. The Defense Counsel Journal article described above and entitled Excess-Primary Insurer Obligations and the Rights of The Insured by Thomas M. Hamilton and Troy A. Stark addresses this issue quite well. For more up to date information on the topic, you might try getting your hands on a Donald Malecki article from the December 2008 edition of Malecki on Insurance entitled Horizontal Versus Vertical Exhaustion of Limits (found in a subscribers forum issue). He provides case law from 2007 and 2008 on the topic as well as his expert opinion.
While we'll continue to look at the stats for possible areas of interest, we also welcome suggestions for future blog posts. You can email the library or post a comment!
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