Tag Archives | Insurance

Protect Yourself With Alien Abduction Insurance

By JacobSloan on February 21, 2013 in News 3

If you are one day abducted by aliens and impregnated, who will pay for your baby? Wikipedia explains:

Alien abduction insurance is an insurance policy issued against alien abduction. The insurance policy is redeemed if the insured person is abducted by aliens.

A policy normally costs around $150 per $1.5 million in coverage, and policy offerings vary from $10,000 to $10 million. Some companies offer policies for alien pregnancy, alien examinations and death caused by aliens.

The very first company to offer UFO abduction insurance was the St. Lawrence Agency in Altamonte Springs, Florida. The company says that it has paid out at least two claims. Over 20,000 people have purchased the insurance.

Prominent policyholders have included Shirley MacLaine and a Harvard University professor who has written on aliens. The Heaven’s Gate religious group had purchased alien abduction insurance before their mass suicide.

… Read the rest

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The Insurance Industry Claims Global Warming Is Real

By imkaan on March 4, 2012 in News 8

Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid (CC)

Reports Gus Lubin on Business Insider:

Insurance industry leaders went before Congress on Friday to ask for increased federal support for the costs of destructive global warming. From their perspective, there is no question whether or not climate change is real.

Here are some quotes posted by Insurance Networking News:

From our industry’s perspective, the footprints of climate change are around us and the trend of increasing damage to property and threat to lives is clear,” said Franklin Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America.

Cynthia McHale, the insurance program director at Ceres, issued a more unequivocal statement: “Our climate is changing, human activity is helping to drive the change, and the costs of these extreme weather events are going to keep ballooning unless we break through our political paralysis, and bring down emissions that are warming our planet. If we continue on this path, extreme weather is certain to cause more homes and businesses to be uninsurable in the private insurance market, leaving the costs to taxpayers or individuals.”

Read More: Business Insider… Read the rest

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U.S. Approves Free Birth Control For Women

By Pelliciari on August 1, 2011 in News 236

Photo: Ceridwen (CC)

It’s a good time to be a woman. Via Reuters:

U.S. health insurance companies must offer women free birth control and other preventive health care services under Obama administration rules released on Monday, a historic decision supported by family planning groups and opposed by conservative groups.

The rules from the Health and Human Services Department are part of the nation’s healthcare overhaul and largely follow recommendations from an advisory group released last month.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, commissioned by the Obama administration, recommended that all U.S.-approved birth control methods — including the “morning-after pill,” taken shortly after intercourse to stop a pregnancy — be added to the list of preventive health services.

[Continues at Reuters]… Read the rest

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German Insurer Munich Re Rewards Salesmen With Prostitutes

By BananaFamine on May 21, 2011 in News 10

BBC News reports:

One of the biggest insurance companies in the world held a party for salesmen where they were rewarded with the services of prostitutes.

Munich Re is the world’s biggest re-insurer — in other words, the company acts as an insurance company for other insurance companies.

One of its divisions, Ergo, told the BBC that the party had taken place to reward salesmen in 2007. A spokesman said the people who organised it had since left.

The gathering was held at a thermal baths in the Hungarian capital Budapest as a reward to particularly successful salesmen.

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Climate Change “Already Visible,” Say Insurers

By moezilla on January 16, 2011 in News 10

Photo: Mila Zinkova (CC)

In 1980 there were just 60 floods, blizzards, or thunderstorms, but in 2010 there were 247. “It’s likely that the number of strong storms involving rain, snow and hail is also rising because of warming temperatures,” says the head of the Corporate Climate Center at Munich Reinsurance, adding “we believe we have indications that climate change is already, at least to some extent, visible.”

The number of damaging storms rose from 50 reported thirty years ago to 150 in 2010, notes this environmental blog, adding that “While politicians bicker over the reality of climate change, insurance companies are dealing with its reality.” In fact, altogether the past year saw 950 disasters worldwide, where 30 years ago the number was a mere 400.

But wouldn’t it be interesting if the single most powerful lobbyist on the issue of climate legislation became the insurance companies?… Read the rest

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Petty Criminals Unite! Subway Fare-Jumpers In Paris Form Insurance Fund

By JacobSloan on June 30, 2010 in News 8

As someone oppressed by the ever-expanding ticket prices of New York’s corruptly-run MTA subway system, I find this example of criminal ingenuity inspiring: turnstile hoppers in Paris have formed an insurance fund so that whenever one of them is caught by the police, their fine/expenses are fully covered.

“It’s a way to resist together,” declared Gildas, 30, a leader of the mutuelle movement. “We can make solidarity.”

“There are things in France which are supposed to be free — schools, health. So why not transportation?” he said. “It’s not a question of money…. It’s a political question.”

The fare dodgers who jump the turnstiles or sneak in through exit barriers on the Paris Metro are practically as much a fixture of the city as the subway itself.

Those who get caught without a proper ticket, though, face fines of up to $60. So what’s a poor freeloader to do?

For about $8.50 a month, those who join one of these raffish-sounding mutuelles des fraudeurs can rest easy knowing that, if they get busted for refusing to be so bourgeois as to pay to use public transit, the fund will cough up the money for the fine.

… Read the rest

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Health Care Reform? If You Have A Preexisting Condition, The Insurance Company Is Only Fined $100/Day NOT To Treat You

By ralph on April 28, 2010 in News 4

Change you can believe in? Think again. Not as long as the insurance companies get to write the bills in Washington. Paul Harwood writes on MichaelMoore.com:
Fine Print

I caught Lawrence O’Donnell interviewing Michael Moore [on Countdown With Keith Olbermann] about health care.

Because I’m unemployed and so have time on my hands, and because there were so many bizarre claims about the contents of the HCR bill being tossed around during the debate, I’d already spent time spelunking through the depths of the bill … and so my ears perked up when I heard him saying this:

MOORE: If the insurance company is caught denying somebody because of a preexisting condition … their fine, according to this new law, is $100 a day. One hundred dollars. Now, do you think they’re going to take the fine, or do you think they’re going to pay thousands of dollars to help you if you have cancer?

… Read the rest

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Health Insurers More Grotesquely Greedy Than Wall Street Bankers

By Raymond on February 17, 2010 in News 0

From Alternet:

The great thing about Corporate America is that competition is always fierce for the national title of greediest.

By gollies, the top executives of health insurance corporations are not giving up without a fight! To paraphrase every high school football coach who ever lived, “When the going gets ugly, the ugly get going.”

During the past several months, the Barons of Wall Street had established themselves as the vilest and most reviled corporate team in the land. They’ve been lavishing bonuses on themselves even as their firms continue to benefit from government bailout measures and even as ordinary Americans continue to struggle with the economic collapse caused by the bankers’ arrogance and avarice. Wall Streeters were widely considered a shoo-in to take the coveted Corporate Greedhead Trophy this year — but, holy cow, what a comeback bid we’re now seeing from the Giants of Insurance!

Let’s recap their amazing charge: Last week, the news broke that America’s five largest health insurance companies (United Health, Wellpoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna) had scored record profits in 2009, totaling $12.2 billion.

… Read the rest

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