INSURANCE NEWSCAST "Headlines Only Edition" for: Thursday, 05/03/07

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INSURANCE NEWSCAST can be read online at www.insurancebroadcasting.com

INSURANCE NEWSCAST "Headlines Only Edition" for: Thursday, 05/03/07

Here is a quick look at the stories that will be in Thursday's INSURANCE NEWSCAST.

1) Citigroup to buy Bisys for $1.45 bln - Wed May 2, 2007 7:54AM EDT - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc. (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research said on Wednesday it agreed to buy Bisys Group Inc. (BSG.N: Quote, Profile, Research for $1.45 billion, and then sell two of the financial services processor's units to private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co. - Bisys shareholders will receive $11.85 per share in cash, 3.3 percent more than the Tuesday closing price, plus a dividend of 15 cents per share, making the total purchase price $1.47 billion. The net cost to Citigroup will be about $800 million after the J.C. Flowers transaction.

2) BISYS® Announces Agreement to Be Acquired by Citi - ROSELAND, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BISYS, a leading provider of outsourcing solutions for the financial services sector, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement under which Citi (NYSE: C) would acquire all of its outstanding shares in a transaction valued at approximately $1.45 billion. BISYS shareholders would receive $12.00 in cash per share, consisting of $11.85 per share to be paid by Citi at the closing of the acquisition and a special dividend of $0.15 per share in cash payable by BISYS, and conditioned upon the closing of the acquisition, for total consideration of $1.47 billion.

3) Health care errors affect one in 10 patients: WHO - Wed May 2, 2007 9:46am ET - GENEVA (Reuters) - Errors in medical care affect 10 percent of patients worldwide, according to the United Nations health agency, which issued a checklist on Wednesday to help doctors and nurses avoid common mistakes. - The nine key points listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) include double-checking similar-sounding medication names, ensuring patients are correctly identified, and improving hand hygiene to avoid preventable infections.

4) California?s Agricultural Self-Insured Groups Call on State of California to Find Answers to Unexplained Bee Deaths - Ontario, CA (May 1, 2007): California-based Self Insured Solutions, which manages four successful agricultural self insured workers? comp groups in the highly-competitive California workers? comp marketplace and represents 228 companies across the state, has called on the State of California to quickly find answers to the sudden and unexplained mass-bee deaths that are threatening $6 billion dollars worth of grown-in-California agriculture, according to Self Insured Solutions Vice-President Joe Wheeler.

5) NAIC SVO Delivers Special Reports To Address Transparency Issue - NEW YORK (May 1, 2007) ? The Securities Valuation Office (SVO) of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) today will begin publication of a series of five articles that discuss how state insurance regulators classify securities for statutory purposes and how the methodology is applied to hybrid securities. - The articles, each of which will focus on a different aspect of the issue, will be published weekly and made available on the NAIC Web site. The introductory paragraphs of the first article will highlight the topics to be discussed in the series.

6) INSURANCE NEWSLINK Articles - Recent articles added to INSURANCE NEWSLINK, the worldwide, strategic concise intelligence database of over 27,000 articles including interviews, uniquely analysed by company, market, research, regulatory, and IT topics. Please click here for a content overview and a 15-day free review.

7) NEW EXPERT COMMENTARY FROM IRMI.COM - There are now over 900 risk management and insurance articles on IRMI.com. Below you'll find summaries of some recent additions with links to the articles.

8) Hub International Obtains Interim Order in Connection With Proposed Acquisition - CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hub International Limited (NYSE:HBG) (TSX:HBG) announced today that it has obtained an Interim Order from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approving the mailing of materials and the holding of a special meeting in connection with Hub?s proposed acquisition by funds advised by Apax Partners together with Morgan Stanley Principal Investments.

9) Comit, a Swisscom Company, Has Acquired International Financial Business Solutions (IFBS AG), a Leading Securities Finance and Collateral Management Software Application Provider - ZURICH, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Comit, a wholly owned subsidiary of Swisscom, the USD 8 billion telecom and technology giant, has agreed to acquire International Financial Business Solutions (IFBS AG) and its leading Securities Lending, Repo and OTC Derivatives Collateral Management suite of solutions, FINACE®. Swisscom has over 17,000 staff worldwide with 500 consultants in the Comit subsidiary dedicated to banking and securities industry clients in Europe and Asia, with offices in many European Capitals and in Singapore.

10) Society of Actuaries Study Finds DxCG Predictive Models Best in Class - BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--An independent study sponsored by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) has found that the DxCG predictive models?Diagnostic Cost Group (DCG) models, underwriting models, and RxGroups® models, have best-in-class predictive accuracy among commercially available risk adjuster tools in predicting health care costs. The findings are in a study released in April 2007 titled ?A Comparative Analysis of Claims-based Tools for Health Risk Assessment,? which updates an earlier study published in 2002.

11) National Survey Reveals That Americans Want to Go Digital When it Comes to Their Health Care - WASHINGTON, May 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Though their direct experience with electronic medical records is limited, U.S. health care consumers show strong interest in utilizing them further, according to anew national survey about Americans' awareness of, and acceptance towards, health information technology released today at the Health IT: Unlocking the Potential summit in Washington, D.C.

12) It's About Access to Health Care, Not Universal Coverage - ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Policymakers at both the state and federal levels are increasingly focusing on the uninsured and proposals that promise to achieve "universal coverage," in which everyone has comprehensive health insurance coverage. In this rush to provide everyone with coverage, they have forgotten the underlying goal -- providing everyone with access to health care.

13) New Study Sheds Light on Americans' Real Risk of Disability - Tuesday May 1, 12:16 pm ET - WASHINGTON, May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Americans are slightly less likely to suffer a long-term disability than they were in the 1970s and 1980s, yet those who do will likely experience it for a longer period of time. This is one of the main findings from a study released today by the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE) entitled, "The Real Risk of Disability in the United States." Conducted by the global consulting firm Milliman, Inc., the study offers insights into disability risks based on gender, age, occupation and disability type by contrasting U.S. individual, long-term disability claim incidence between the decades of the 1970s/early 1980s and the 1990s.

14) Council for Disability Awareness Releases 2006 Claims Review From Leading Insurers, Social Security Data - PORTLAND, Maine, May 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A review of 2006 long- term disability claims among the U.S. workforce released today by the Council for Disability Awareness (CDA) revealed that the number of American workers experiencing a long-term disability continues to grow at a rate faster than the growth of the workforce.

15) AIG Companies® Introduce AIG PassportSM For Excess Casualty - NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The AIG Companies today introduced AIG PassportSM for Excess Casualty, a service created for multinational companies to facilitate purchasing locally admitted excess casualty liability insurance to cover their international operations and subsidiaries.

16) C.V. Starr & Company Announces the Creation of New Excess Capacity - SAN FRANCISCO, May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- C. V. Starr & Company and Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, Ltd. today announced that effective immediately C.V. Starr & Company will offer excess casualty insurance for public entity, residential and commercial contracting risks on behalf of Allied World Assurance Company (U.S.) Inc., (Allied World) a subsidiary of Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, Ltd. The agreement gives C. V. Starr & Company the ability to augment its excess liability underwriting by providing excess facility for excess capacity of $15,000,000 above C. V. Starr & Company's current capacity of $10,000,000.

17) XL Capital Ltd Announces Plan to Offer Senior Notes - HAMILTON, Bermuda, May 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- XL Capital Ltd (NYSE: XL) ("XL" or the "Company") announced today that it currently plans to sell up to $325.0 million of senior notes due 2027 pursuant to XL's currently effective shelf registration statement. - XL intends to use the net proceeds from the sale of its senior notes, together with available cash, to retire $825.0 million aggregate principal amount of its 2.53% Senior Notes due 2009 which comprise part of its 6.50% Equity Security Units which settle on May 15, 2007.

18) A.M. Best Releases Guide to Business Insurance Products; Useful Resource for Consumers, Brokers, Companies and Educators - OLDWICK, N.J., May 1, 2007?Anyone interested in or involved with commercial insurance will gain a better understanding of 21 types of business insurance coverage with The Guide to Understanding Business Insurance Products, a new book Published by A.M. Best Co. Agents and brokers can use the book to help explain to prospective clients as well as office staff the benefits of specific commerical coverages. The Guide serves as a practical training and education resource for companies, brokers and educational institutions.

19) AIA Supports Massachusetts Auto Reform Bill - BOSTON, May 2, 2007 ? Proposed Massachusetts auto reform legislation (H. 1023) would provide consumers with a competitive auto insurance system offering more choices and lower costs, according to the American Insurance Assocation (AIA).

20) INSURANCE NEWSCAST ?Pictures Of The Day?

21) Predicting the Future and Compressing Time Claimetrics Announces Innovative Forecasting for Results, Safety - (New Orleans) ? Claimetrics continued to create a stir at the Risk and Insurance Management Society today, as CEO Marshall Snipes criticized the traditional "delay and deny" tactics of the past, while announcing an innovative approach to resolving claims in a compressed period of time. --- Specifically, Snipes explained the Claimetrics approach: "Through early intervention in every case, professional medical oversight, and advanced technology and analysis, the resolution of most claims can be predicted within weeks."

22) Fidelity Life Association Becomes A Stock Legal Reserve Life Insurance Company in a Mutual Holding Company Reorganization - OAK BROOK, IL, May 1, 2007 Fidelity Life Association today announced it has reorganized as a stock legal reserve life insurance company, with newly formed Members Mutual Holding Company as its ultimate parent. The reorganization was approved by its member - policyholders and the Illinois Division of Insurance last week.

23) Fincor Holdings Acquires MHA Service Corp. Insurance Services, Employee Safety and Disability Management divisions - Lansing, Mich. May 1, 2007 ? FinCor Holdings Inc. (www.fincorholdings.com) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of the Insurance Services and Employee Safety and Disability Management (ESDM) Divisions of the MHA Service Corporation (MHASC), a subsidiary of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA).

24) Licensing Executives Society Warns Supreme Court Decisions May Water Down U.S. Patent Laws - WASHINGTON, May 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The president of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) today warned that the U.S. Supreme Court rulings yesterday regarding patent laws "may end up watering down the patent system to the point where it no longer serves the function intended to appropriately award innovation." --- In its ruling, the Supreme Court addressed the leap from what is known to what is patentable -- what would have been obvious from the prior work of others. In recognizing the challenge, the Court stated "In many fields there may be little discussion of obvious techniques or combinations and market demand, rather than scientific literature, may often drive design trends."

25) New-Employee Orientations are usually short and often fail to measure effectiveness - ST. PETERSBURG, FL (May 1, 2007) ? According to a recent survey, most companies don?t spend a lot of time orienting new recruits, and their top strategy for ?wowing? them is to hand out items branded with the company logo. The survey, conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp ? formerly HRI), also found that although the vast majority of companies have new-employee orientation (NEO) programs, more than one-fifth of them don?t bother to track their effectiveness.

26) Pittsburgh Groups to Tell Lawmakers to Fix the Broken Health Care System - Pittsburgh - A coalition of national, state and Pittsburgh organizations will host a press conference urging visiting Pennsylvania lawmakers to endorse Governor Rendell's "Prescription for Pennsylvania" healthcare proposal. The event will take place before the Pennsylvania House Insurance Committee hearings on the bill, House Bill 700. The groups will release a letter to lawmakers and hear the stories of the uninsured and of small businesses that can not afford the cost of insurance.

26) Ohio Spends $62 Billion Annually on Health Care, Lack of Insurance Costs State Billions More, Research Finds - Ohioans spend $62.2 billion on non-institutional health care each year, while the Ohio economy loses between $2.1 and $5.8 billion due to lost productivity and other indirect costs of having 1.3 million Ohio residents without health insurance, according to research released today by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio (HPIO).

27) Women Driven to Distraction by Men's Irritating Habits - CARDIFF, Wales, May 2/PRNewswire/ -- Do you think you have any irritating driving habits? A new survey has revealed that while half of women drivers believe they don't, 90% of them don't share that feeling when it comes to male drivers and their irritating habits.

28) MassMutual Announces Bundled Plan for $1 to $5 Million Market - SPRINGFIELD, Mass., April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- MassMutual Retirement Services has introduced MassMutual PlanSmart(SM), its new bundled small plan targeting defined contribution plans with $1 to $5 million in assets. MassMutual PlanSmart is designed to help optimize retirement plan participation and savings behavior with simplified administration on the part of the plan sponsor.

29) AARP Launches Statewide Campaign for Health Care Reform - PASADENA, Calif., April 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AARP's national CEO William (Bill) Novelli was joined by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning at the Pasadena Convention Center for the first of a series of AARP forums on California health care reform. - At the event, Novelli announced the launch of a statewide campaign in California, which will last throughout the legislative session. The campaign will include television, radio, online, and print advertising as well as grass roots advocacy.

30) Governor Rendell to Address Major Employers, Health Plans and Providers on Advancing Value-Driven Health Care - PHILADELPHIA, April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Three members of the Partnership for Value Driven Health Care Initiative - The National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), The Leapfrog Group and Bridges to Excellence (BTE) - announced the addition of two keynote speakers to its incentives and rewards program being held in Philadelphia May 15-16. Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell and Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund, a national philanthropy engaged in independent research on health and social policy issues, have recently been confirmed. Advancing Value-Driven Health Care: The Third Annual Incentives & Rewards Symposium is designed to raise awareness and educate purchasers, health plans, and health care providers in implementing incentives and rewards (I & R) programs. As previously announced, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, will also attend as a keynote.

31) Leading U.S. Pathologist Gives His Top 10 Tips for Summer Skin Protection in Time for May's National Skin Cancer Awareness Month - CHARLESTON, S.C., April 30 /PRNewswire/ -- As temperatures rise and more time is spent outside, Dr. Karl Gruber, a noted pathologist and founder of LUCA Sunscreen, reminds us of the dangers of sun exposure and how to protect ourselves and our children from the risks of skin cancer.

32) Norych and Tallis, LLP, I Is Now The Norych Law Group - Coral Springs, FL, Norych and Tallis, LLP, a nationally recognized subrogation and collection law firm handling all lines of insurance, is pleased to announce that effective May 1st, it has become THE NORYCH LAW GROUP, LLP. Online access to file status is now offered to all clients. Their new e-mail address is nfl@norychlaw.com.

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