Insurance Law Commons^™

Maria’S Law: Extending Insurance Coverage For Fertility Preservation To Cancer Patients In Massachusetts, Brittany Raposa

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Note addresses the issues related to fertility preservation treatments for cancer patients in the context of insurance coverage. As cancer survival rates improve, the ability to bear children after therapy is increasingly difficult and a concern for most patients. Currently, no states have laws requiring insurance coverage for fertility preservation treatments for cancer patients. Because it is not currently covered by either private or public insurance, only those who can pay for it on their own can use fertility preservation treatments. This note proposes that Massachusetts, as having one of the most inclusive infertility health insurance mandates, should expand …

Should Neither Wind Nor Rain Nor Hurricane Keep Victims From Recovery? Examining The Tort And Insurance Systems’ Ability To Compensate Hurricane Victims, Kathleen A. Zink

Fordham Law Review

Large-scale natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wreak tremendous havoc, causing billions of dollars in damages. Those who suffer serious damage may turn to their insurance providers or the tort system for compensation. But, both the tort and insurance systems present serious limitations to a hurricane victim’s recovery. This Note analyzes the goals and criticisms of these two systems to determine which compensates hurricane victims best. In light of its analysis, this Note ultimately concludes that neither system satisfactorily compensates victims. Yet, tort could play some role in hurricane-related damage. Tort law could effectively deter negligent behavior by imposing liability on …

Regulating The Business Of Insurance: Federalism In An Age Of Difficult Risk, Robert Jerry, Steven Roberts

Robert H. Jerry II

Although the United States has not established a much-needed and increasingly discussed national catastrophe policy, most significant points in current risk management strategies involve significant federal coordination and control. The authors suggest that a regulatory model that defers to the states with respect to the regulation of the insurance aspects of difficult risks is no longer viable, and an enhanced federal role in insurance regulation specifically -- and in risk management more generally -- is both necessary and appropriate with respect to difficult risks.

Insurance, Terrorism, And 9/11: Reflections On Three Threshold Questions, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Robert H. Jerry II

For most of us, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers exists at the outermost edge of human comprehension. Even after one visits Ground Zero, the events of 9/11 retain a surreal quality, invoking feelings beyond words as one tries to contemplate losses immeasurable with numbers. Indeed, the insurance losses are insignificant when compared to the human tragedies caused by the terrorist attacks -- and in insurance terms, we witnessed the most costly, complex events to transpire in a single day in the history of the planet. Many years will pass before all the insurance ramifications of 9/11 are …

Cybercoverage For Cyber-Risks: An Overview Of Insurers' Responses To The Perils Of E-Commerce, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Michele L. Mekel

Robert H. Jerry II

Insurers' responses to the risks inherent in e-commerce and the demand for coverage have been anything but uniform. Instead, the solutions are a patchwork of stop-gap measures and niche offerings, including: (1) exclusions to coverage; (2) modifications to existing policies in order to extend or to limit coverage; and (3) the creation of new policies that specifically target Internet-related liabilities and losses. These various measures have been applied in both the first- and third-party settings. This article presents an overview of some of the risks involved in the new "e-economy" and surveys how insurers are responding to these new risks.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, Consumers Union Of United States, Inc. V. New York, Daphne Vlcek

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nondiscrimination In Insurance: The Next Chapter, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

Modern federal civil rights legislation prohibits race and gender discrimination in many important sectors of the American economy, including employment, education, public accommodations, housing, and credit. No comparable comprehensive federal civil rights legislation bans race and gender discrimination in the business of insurance-a business at the core of legal and social organization, culture, and finance. Why not?

The Unintended Federalism Consequences Of The Affordable Care Act’S Insurance Market Reforms, Joshua Phares Ackerman

Pace Law Review

This Article, which is the first to examine the relationship between the ACA’s insurance market reforms and state regulation of insurance, argues that states’ decisions to forego creating their own exchanges may mark the beginning of an important shift of regulatory authority from the states to the federal government. It begins by sketching the historical antecedents of the current allocation of state and federal authority over insurance regulation. The aim of this discussion is to highlight the unique role states play in the regulation of insurance as opposed to other financial products. Part III explains the pre-ACA structure of health …

Resolving The Double Liability Problem: A Critique Of California's Mechanics Lien Statute, Terrence Nguyen

University of Massachusetts Law Review

California’s mechanics lien statute allows a sub-contractor to file a lien on a homeowner’s property when a direct contractor, for whom the sub-contractor worked, has failed to pay the sub-contractor. The statute compels the homeowner to pay the sub-contractor even when the homeowner has paid the direct contractor in full. This Note argues that California’s mechanics lien statute is too broad, because the statute does not provide any exception for a homeowner who has paid the direct contractor in full. Specifically, this Note argues that California’s mechanics lien statute violates public policy, as well as constitutional, and contract principles. This …

The Analysis Of The Hcs Department's Injury And Illness Prevention Program, Matthew Evers

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

The Horticulture and Crop Science department had created their own Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) which was placed online using Cal Poly’s “PolyLearn” module. The program had just been created and generally covered some of the basic IIPP elements required by CalOSHA law, however it had various points of improvement to fulfill all IIPP regulations. It was found that the program content was not in compliance with CalOSHA laws regarding hazard inspection, training, and record keeping, but through meetings with the various department staff, these areas were brought into compliance with CalOSHA requirements, or are expected to be …

Insurance At The Energy-Water Nexus, Donald T. Hornstein

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Affordable Care Act, Remedy, And Litigation Reform, Brendan S. Maher

Faculty Scholarship

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“ACA”) rewrote the law of private health insurance. How the ACA rewrote the law of civil remedies, however, is — to date — a question largely unexamined by scholars. Courts everywhere, including the United States Supreme Court, will soon confront this important issue.

This Article offers a foundational treatment of the ACA on remedy. It predicts a series of flashpoints over which litigation reform battles will be fought. It identifies several themes that will animate those conflicts and trigger others. It explains how judicial construction of the statute’s functional predecessor, the …

A Preliminary Look At State Structures For Regulating Financial Services, Elizabeth F. Brown

Elizabeth F Brown

Within the past thirty-five years approximately fifty nations have consolidated their financial regulatory agencies into either a single integrated agency or into two semi-integrated agencies. The United States has resisted this trend, due in part to a concern that the costs of such significant consolidation would exceed its benefits. The existing studies that compare the costs of the consolidated regulators around the world with the United States regime have often been discounted because they have been unable to control for differences in culture and regulatory intensity between those other countries and the United States. This article attempts to address this …

Assessing The Insurance Role Of Tort Liability After Calabresi, W. Kip Viscusi, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Calabresi’s theory of tort liability (1961) as a risk distribution mechanism established insurance as an objective of tort liability. Calabresi’s risk-spreading concept of tort has provided the impetus for much of the subsequent development of tort liability doctrine, including risk-utility analysis and strict liability. Calabresi’s analysis remains a powerful basis for modern tort liability. However, high transactions costs, correlated risks, catastrophic losses, mass toxic torts, shifts in liability rules over time, noneconomic damages, and punitive damages affect the functioning of tort liability as an insurance mechanism. Despite some limitations of tort liability as insurance, tort compensation serves both a compensatory …

Understanding Insurance Anti-Discrimination Laws, Ronen Avraham, Kyle D. Logue, Daniel Schwarcz

Articles

Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds into separate risk pools based on the differences in their risk profiles, first, so that different premiums can be charged to the different groups based on their differing risks and, second, to incentivize risk reduction by insureds. This is why we let insurers discriminate. There are limits, however, to the types of discrimination that are permissible for insurers. But what exactly are those limits and how are they justified? To answer these questions, this Article (a) articulates the leading fairness and efficiency arguments for and against limiting …

Towards A Universal Framework For Insurance Anti-Discrimination Laws, Ronen Avraham, Kyle D. Logue, Daniel Schwarcz

Articles

Discrimination in insurance is principally regulated at the state level. Surprisingly, there is a great deal of variation across coverage lines and policyholder characteristics in how and the extent to which risk classification by insurers is limited. Some statutes expressly permit insurers to consider certain characteristics, while other characteristics are forbidden or limited in various ways. What explains this variation across coverage lines and policyholder characteristics? Drawing on a unique, hand-collected data-set consisting of the laws regulating insurer risk classification in fifty-one U.S. jurisdictions, this Article argues that much of the variation in state-level regulation of risk classification can in …

Behavioral Economics And Insurance Law: The Importance Of Equilibrium Analysis, Tom Baker, Peter Siegelman

All Faculty Scholarship

Because choosing insurance requires consumers to assess risks and probabilities, the demand for insurance has proven to be fertile ground for identifying deviations from rational behavior. Consumers often shun the insurance against large losses that they rationally should want (e.g., floods); and they are attracted to insurance against small losses (extended warranties, low deductibles) that no rational individual should purchase. But the welfare consequences of behavioral anomalies in insurance are complex, because consumers’ irrational behavior takes place in a market profoundly shaped by informational asymmetries. Under some conditions, deviations from rational behavior may actually generate insurance market equilibria that produce …

Fiscal Federalism As Risk-Sharing: The Insurance Role Of Redistributive Taxation, John R. Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In addition to funding government and redistributing income, a redistributive tax-and-transfer system, and a progressive income tax in particular, provides insurance against the risk of uncertain future income. By providing for high taxes for high incomes, and low taxes, exemptions, and transfers for low incomes, a progressive income tax lowers the volatility of potential after-tax income relative to a lump-sum tax. This insurance function is distinct from the redistributive function of the system, since it provides a direct risk-mitigation benefit to the taxpayer himself, rather than simply redistributing income from one taxpayer to another.

This article analyzes the question of …

You Want Insurance With That? Using Behavioral Economics To Protect Consumers From Add-On Insurance Products, Tom Baker, Peter Siegelman

Peter Siegelman

No abstract provided.

The Optimal Resolution Of Intra-Policy Um/Uim Stacking, Christopher Robinette, Jessica Smeriglio

Christopher J Robinette

Gambling On Our Financial Future: How The Federal Government Fiddles While State Common Law Is A Safer Bet To Prevent Another Financial Collapse, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall