Billion In Claims Research Articles

Investment Law's Transparency Gap

One of the fastest growing areas of international law in recent times is also one of the most controversial. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of investment treaties surged from less than 500 to over 3,000. Through this expansion, foreign investors gained extensive rights to sue sovereign states directly in arbitration through investment treaty arbitration (ITA). The result: a remarkable transfer of sovereign power to a semi-private supranational adjudication system. Once investors challenged governments through the ITA system, bringing hundreds of claims, backlash ensued. Cases in which foreign investors challenged public interests—for instance, health regulations and emergency financial management—amplified outrage. Adjudicating disputes between foreign investors and sovereigns involves the assertion of private rights in matters of public interest. ITA involves the intrusion of international law into domestic spheres—in a sense, “peak” globalization. Yet, despite direct and compelling consequences for public interests, transparency in ITA is persistently low. Our study uses predictive modeling to shed light on ITA activity. We calculate the dimensions of overall ITA activity, combining known amounts with an estimate of unknown claims and awards. In doing so, we illustrate the “transparency gap” in ITA, which we estimate as an unreported $186 billion in claims and $15 billion in awards.

How to achieve better flood-risk governance in the United States

Recent flood disasters (Fig. 1) have exposed issues with how flood risk is governed in the United States, raising questions about who owns responsibility for managing and paying for losses. In February 2017, 190,000 residents were evacuated as the primary and emergency spillways at Oroville Dam in California failed, a scenario that had been raised to and dismissed by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission engineers in 2005. To date, more than $1 billion in claims has been filed with the State of California associated with recovery from this failing infrastructure. More recently, the nation watched as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma flooded cities across the South, threatening to considerably deepen the National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP’s) $25 billion debt. Fig. 1. Recent flooding has decimated infrastructure and left thousands homeless. In October 2015, Hurricane Joaquin caused widespread flooding in South Carolina and destroyed Cary Lake dam in Columbia ( Upper Left ). Heavy rain and flooding caused the Oroville Dam spillway in northern California to fail in February 2017 ( Upper Right ). And in August 2017, massive rains from Hurricane Harvey spurred extensive flooding across much of Houston ( Bottom Left and Right ). Images courtesy of Hermann Fritz (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta) ( Upper Left ), The California Department of Water Resources ( Upper Right ), Shutterstock/DIIMSA Researcher ( Lower Left ), and Shutterstock/michelmond ( Lower Right ). Furthermore, the 2017 hurricane season highlighted some of the key failures in the nation’s leadership regarding flood response. Much of Houston, TX, failed to evacuate during Hurricane Harvey after mixed messages from political leaders and a catastrophic evacuation in 2005, and only 20% of homeowners in the area have flood insurance. More than 3,400 water evacuations were conducted within the 4 days after the hurricane made landfall (Fig. 1, Bottom Right ), and the uninsured losses are expected to soar. Hurricanes Irma and Maria both exposed … [↵][1]1Email: Desiree.Tullos{at}oregonstate.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Aligning Natural Resource Conservation, Flood Hazard Mitigation, and Social Vulnerability Remediation in Florida

Flooding continues to be the most common and damaging of all natural disasters in the United States. In 2016, twelve individual weather and climate events caused more than $1billion in damages each. During 2016, the U.S. was hit by at least five once-in-1,000 years precipitation events, and severe floods resulted in more than $17 billion in damages. Currently, more than 5.5 million active policies under the National Flood Insurance Program, underwrite more than $1.6 trillion in assets. Since 1978, NFIP has paid out more than $38 billion in claims – nearly 30% was paid to the 1% of properties classified as “repetitive loss properties” (RLPs).

Aligning Natural Resource Conservation and Flood Hazard Mitigation in California.

Flooding is the most common and damaging of all natural disasters in the United States, and was a factor in almost all declared disasters in U.S. history. Direct flood losses in the U.S. in 2011 totaled $8.41 billion and flood damage has also been on the rise globally over the past century. The National Flood Insurance Program paid out more than $38 billion in claims since its inception in 1968, more than a third of which has gone to the one percent of policies that experienced multiple losses and are classified as “repetitive loss.” During the same period, the loss of coastal wetlands and other natural habitat has continued, and funds for conservation and restoration of these habitats are very limited. This study demonstrates that flood losses could be mitigated through action that meets both flood risk reduction and conservation objectives. We found that there are at least 11,243km2 of land in coastal California, which is both flood-prone and has natural resource conservation value, and where a property/structure buyout and habitat restoration project could meet multiple objectives. For example, our results show that in Sonoma County, the extent of land that meets these criteria is 564km2. Further, we explore flood mitigation grant programs that can be a significant source of funds to such projects. We demonstrate that government funded buyouts followed by restoration of targeted lands can support social, environmental, and economic objectives: reduction of flood exposure, restoration of natural resources, and efficient use of limited governmental funds.

Auditing Vehicles Claims Using Neural Networks

Nowadays, fraud is a major enemy of insurance companies. For the total of R$ 28 billion in claims, an estimated R$ 7 billions must be fraud. Since the claims represent 59.9% of the premiums paid by the companies, frauds represent 15.0% of them. Therefore, great caution is to be taken in order to detect the frauds and not to pay for these claims. One of the most important detection tools is the audit. However, because it is an expensive service, it is not possible to audit all claims. Based on this caution, the goal of this work is to test some strategies of how to select claims to be audited. The strategies used become more complex, from the first to the fifth, starting with simple thoughts for the first three strategies, and the utilization of logistic models and neural network to estimate the probability of a fraud detection on the fourth and fifth strategies, respectively.

Gulf spill two years out

Summary Two years on, the national spotlight seems to have turned away from the Gulf oil spill, but a massive assessment of the environmental impacts is quietly under way. As Cyrus Martin reports, several recent observations, and a study of deepwater coral communities, suggest we may not be out of the woods yet.

Solvent Schemes: What Is Their Purpose, How to Deal with Them, and Are They as Bad as They Appear

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Gary Wakinshaw, based in London, is a UK-qualified solicitor and general counsel of Global Risk Capital. Dade R. Nigro is a director in Global Risk Capital's Washington, D.C. office. Global Risk Capital is a private equity firm specializing in the purchase of insurance assets. Since 2001 it has purchased over $2 billion in claims against insurance companies around the world.

Chapter 6: Insurance industry

Chapter 6: Insurance industry

Debt Weight: The Consumer Credit Crisis in New York City and Its Impact on the Working Poor

The number of consumer debt cases filed in New York City Civil Court has exploded in recent years. In 2006 alone, approximately 320,000 such cases were filed in the five boroughs; this number is comparable to the total number of civil and criminal cases filed in the federal trial courts nationwide that year. Almost $1 billion in claims were made against New York City residents in consumer debt filings in 2006; in that year, we estimate that creditors ultimately obtained judgments of almost $800 million. In many ways, New York City Civil Court has become the “credit card court”, with a majority of the cases filed throughout the five boroughs classified as consumer debt cases. The impact of this judgment debt is profound. Once a judgment is obtained by a creditor against a debtor, the situation goes from bad to tragic. A creditor with a judgment can garnish wages and freeze bank accounts. Often, due to additional penalties, interest, fees and costs, the ultimate judgment obtained far exceeds any original debt that might have accrued. Sometimes, the defendant never owed the alleged debt, which may have been the result of identify theft, mistaken identity, clerical errors, or illegal fees and charges. Once an account is frozen, a debtor under such a crushing weight may be unable to pay rent bills, utilities, obtain medicine and pay for food and other necessities. A judgment will invariably show up on credit reports and such a black mark on a credit report will make it more difficult to find an apartment, get a better job, and obtain credit. For the working poor, the judgment blocks their climb up the economic ladder, and they cannot obtain better housing or a better job, or get a loan for a car or home. The total amount of judgments obtained against city residents in 2006, approximately $800 million, is the equivalent of building one new stadium for the Mets every year. Against this backdrop, this report is an attempt to understand the manner in which creditors are using the Civil Court of the City of New York to collect debts. To this end, the Urban Justice Center reviewed 600 randomly selected cases, all filed in February of 2006, in the five borough courthouses of the Civil Part of New York City Civil Court. The results of our research are striking.

GPS/GNSS reflectometry nanosatellite demonstration mission

Loss of life, injury and huge economic losses are incurred annually due to irregular and insufficient sea–state information. Figures indicate that, each year, the marine insurance industry pays out over $2 billion in claims for weather–related accidents, while bad weather causes one ship of over 500 t to sink somewhere on the globe every week. Accurate knowledge of local ocean conditions is therefore crucial in providing forecasts and early warnings of severe weather conditions. Space–borne systems, particularly satellites, provide the ideal platform for global monitoring of sea conditions via altimetric measurements. As an alternative to active altimetry, another concept is passively receiving reflected signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites. This concept was first developed by Dr Manuel Martin–Neira at ESA–ESTEC. ESA9s Passive Reflectometry and Interferometry System makes use of GPS/GNSS signals from satellites and their reflection off the ocean surface to derive oceanic properties such as surface height, significant wave height, wind speed and wind direction. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd are proposing a nanosatellite demonstration mission to ascertain the feasibility of the GPS ocean reflectometry concept.

An Exposure-Based Analysis of Property-Liability Insurer Stock Values around Hurricane Andrew

Introduction Investors hold a set of information that generates expectations concerning risk and earnings. In an efficient market, stock prices quickly reflect all of the relevant information involving a firm. Several studies have examined the type of information investors consider relevant for pricing decisions. Dividend and earnings announcements and stock splits have been extensively covered (Charest, 1978; Aharony and Swary, 1980; Asquith and Mullins, 1983). Other studies have addressed the impact of losses on firm value. Sprecher and Pertl (1983) and Davidson, Chandy, and Cross (1987) found a negative relationship between large losses and firm value. Reilly and Drzycimski (1973) found that stock prices adjust immediately following the announcement of major world events. Shelor, Anderson, and Cross (1990) examined the effect of the October 17, 1989, California earthquake on the stock value of firms in the real estate industry. They concluded that the earthquake conveyed important new information to the market that was reflected in significant negative stock returns among real estate firms operating around San Francisco (the area sustaining the most damage from the earthquake). Real estate-related firms operating in other areas of California were generally unaffected by the earthquake. The occurrence and timing of the earthquake could not be anticipated and, thus, instantaneously introduced new and relevant information to the marketplace. The large negative returns for the sample indicated that investors viewed the earthquake as a signal of unfavorable financial conditions for the real estate industry in the San Francisco bay area. The market response to the earthquake among other California firms was consistent with that observed for an event that has no impact on market valuation. These results provide evidence that the market may discriminate among firms in relation to their geographic risk exposure. Such behavior is expected in a rational and efficient market. In a related article, Shelor, Anderson, and Cross (1992) examined the market response of property-liability insurers around the earthquake. In contrast with the real estate-related firms, the property-liability industry demonstrated a significant positive response to the earthquake, indicating that investor expectations of higher demand for insurance (positive effect) may have more than offset the potential earthquake losses (negative effect). Aiuppa, Carney, and Krueger (1993) also explored the impact of the earthquake on property-liability stock values and found a similar positive response. These results suggest that the two industries were affected by the earthquake in different ways; that is, the California earthquake stimulated industry-specific responses. This conclusion, in part, provides the motivation for this study involving the examination of the effect of Hurricane Andrew on property-liability stock values. Research Question In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida and Louisiana with sustained winds of 138 miles per hour. The magnitude of this storm's devastation made it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The property-liability insurance industry estimates that Andrew caused more than $20 billion in property damage.(1) This dwarfs the $7 billion in claims paid after Hurricane Hugo (the previous costliest natural disaster) struck North Carolina and South Carolina in September 1989. The effect of catastrophic property damage on the value of property-liability insurers is the subject of this study; specifically, does the market demonstrate an ability to discriminate by the degree of loss exposure of property-liability insurers around significant hurricanes (such as Andrew)? Although some insurers have heavy loss exposure in certain geographic areas of the country, other firms have little or no business in the affected areas. If the market is rational and efficient, then it would be surprising to find that unexposed or lightly-exposed firms experience a similar hurricane-induced market reaction to that of heavily-exposed firms. …

Analysis of Low Speed Vehicle Impact Damage

Disputes resulting from low-velocity vehicular collisions have increased dramatically in number during the recent decade. According to the California State Insurance Department, staged auto accidents have risen at an average annual rate of 38% since 1986. Hard figures are not available, but most experts say 10% to 15% of all claim dollars paid out on car insurance result from some form of fakery. According to the Insurance Information Institute, that works out to between $5.4 billion and $8.1 billion of the $54 billion in claims paid last year. An Insurance Research Council study shows that in 1989 insurers paid 55.7 injury claims in California for every 100 auto property damage claims, and 57% of those making bodily injury claims were represented by an attorney. Litigators frequently utilize the assistance of the forensic engineering expert to resolve the legal issues involved in these disputes. Available reference materials for the analysis may be minimal, consisting only of c