Posts Tagged ‘insurance’
Max-Hervé George might be the world’s richest man if Aviva acknowledges his existence
“Dear god almighty, you’ve got to read this,” writes Tim Worstall.
He links to a story on the FT about Max-Hervé George, 25, who has taken on insurance company Aviva France.
Dan McCrum says it is “the worst contract in the world”, a peculair thing first reported in the French magazine Challenges:
The company was L’Abeille Vie. In 1987 it began to offer a special deal to its richer clients, a Fixed Price Arbitrage Life Insurance Contract… prices for the funds were published each Friday, and clients were allowed to switch funds at those prices anytime before the next price was published, even if markets moved in the meantime.
As Kottke says, it’s “like Grays Sports Almanac from Back to the Future II, only for financial markets.
He’s rich. Very rich.
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Insurance Company Sues Man Who Sold Bike To Banned Driver Who Died In An Accident
IF you sell a vehicle and fail to cancel the insurance – and the new owner fails to get any insurance – you could be liable for any damge they cause. Sound fair?
Paul Duffy sold his Kawasaki Ninja motorbike to James Bryson on August 13 this year. Mr Duffy did not know that the buyer was serving a four year driving ban. He had no insurance. Seven days after the legal trade, Mr Bryson collided with a Toyota Yaris near Arbroath, Scotland.
He died.
Paul, 48, a carer for his wife whose recovering from leukaemia, is understandbly unhappy. He was , after all, neither the bike’s registerd keeper nor the owner.
“Lawyers said that because Mr Bryson had died and had no insurance, they would be paying out on my policy. Because he chose to buy my motorcycle, I am, in the eyes of the law, giving him permission to ride the bike and I am in breach of my contract. So if I have any assets, MCE can take them from me to recover costs. I am effectively having to pay for an uninsured driver having a fatal accident. I have never broken the law. I don’t even have as much as a speeding ticket. But I have been told this is the law, and I have no protection or rights. I honestly thought that once the bike was sold, it was no longer my responsibility. I feel this is something every law-abiding, insurance-paying person should be aware of.”
Fair?
Floods, hurricanes and the cost of home insurance
AFTER Hurricane Sandy we’ve had the usual claims that climate change is going to make life more expensive for us all. We also get the same thing being said here in the UK whenever there’s a flood. The idea being that as climate change makes floods and hurricanes and tempests and cyclones and disasters and Aiiiieee!we’reallgonnadie! more likely then the expense of these things is going to continue to rise.
Rebuilding after them will become ever more expensive, house insurance, hurricane insurance, flood insurance, all will be come more expensive as a result of climate change. As all of those things have been getting more expensive in recent years and it’s all climate change’s fault.
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Man Cut Off And Ate Own Hand In Insurance Scam: Hu Dunnit?
TO Taiwan, where a Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman says suspect Hu Chi-yang ate his own hand in an insurance scam.
Posted: 1st, December 2011 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Man Claimed Lost Arm To Get Insurance Money
MICHAEL Earl LeDuc Escanaba, 33, of Michigan, has been jailed for 57 months in prison for telling CUNA Mutual Group that he lost his arm in a wood chipper. His insurance policy said that if he lost a limb, it would earn him 251,000 in compensation. So he lost one – by forging his medical records.
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Posted: 21st, August 2011 | In: Strange But True | Comment
Why Is Car Insurance So Expensive?
WHY is car insurance so expensive? There are reasonable ways of asking that question: reasonable answers to such reasonable queries too. Perhaps there’s not enough competition so monopoly profits are being earned. Perhaps interest rates are too low?
No, seriously, in a competitive insurance market the insurance companies don’t make a profit writing insurance. They almost always make an underwriting loss in fact. However, they get your money early on and only pay out later if an accident happens. So they’re got pots and pots of money lying around waiting for a claim: and they can invest this and make a profit on investing it. Which is what they do and which is the real secret of Warren Buffett’s wealth.
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Posted: 4th, August 2011 | In: Money | Comments (5)
Britons Have Weakest Necks In Europe
DID you know that whiplash claims in the UK are higher than most other countries? It’s true:
“Seventy-six per cent is twice the average for other European countries,” says a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers. “It’s unlikely we’ve got some of the weakest necks in Europe.”
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Posted: 3rd, August 2011 | In: Money | Comments (2)
New Motor Insurance Policies Place Equality Over Fairness
MOTOR insurance policies are not longer about fairness, writes Cramer.
THE latest diktat from the EU is that insurance companies may no longer offer cheaper car insurance to women. It is estimated that their premiums will rise by about 25 per cent, to be equalised with the charges incurred by men. At least, that’s the headline grabber. The impact of this ruling on pensions and annuities will be far greater for men (a reduction of around 10 per cent per annum). But the media are only concerned with the problems of the day and with propagating the most alarmist headline: annuities are future things, and consideration of them is ever so slightly soporific.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that unequal insurance premiums amount to sex discrimination. It is, of course, an inviolable human right, according to the European Convention, not to be discriminated against because of one’s gender. Ergo, women drivers may not be shown favour or granted benefit because they happen, on average, to be more careful behind the wheel.
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Posted: 3rd, March 2011 | In: Money | Comments (2)
Heath Ledger’s Life Insurance Firm Won’t Pay Out
THERE will be an insurance company investigation into Heath Ledger’s death. Forget the police, this is money:
The firm, which is owned by ING Americas, wrote the policy in June 2007, and the insurance money was due to be paid out to an unnamed trustee who would hold the money until two-year-old Matilda comes of age.
But they have so far failed to honour the document and have launched their own probe into Ledger’s death to establish if he committed suicide, therefore voiding the policy.
Heath’s family has gifted his entire $16.6 million dollar estate to his daughter Matilda…
Posted: 29th, September 2008 | In: Celebrities, Money | Comment
