Insurance Companies

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year. State Farm Insurance, one of the nation's largest home insurers, paid more than $109 million on about 3,800 dog bite claims nationwide last year, spokesman Eddie Martinez said Wednesday. In 2010, there were about 3,500 claims and $90 million in payouts. The Insurance Information Institute estimated that nearly $479 million in dog bite claims were paid by all insurance companies in 2011, spokeswoman Loretta Worters said.

Insurance companies have paid $200 million to policy holders from last June's tornadoes in Western and Central Massachusetts, settling more than 98 percent of claims, state officials announced Tuesday. More than 81 percent of claims were paid within four months of the storm, the state's Insurance Division reported after compiling information from the state's 25 largest insurers. State officials said the response has helped the Springfield region recover from the violent storms.

Consumers, already contending with the rising cost of gasoline, food, and other necessities, could now also face sharply higher home insurance premiums. After several years of modest increases, insurance companies are raising rates to offset a big jump in claims related to damage caused by tornadoes, severe snowstorms, and Tropical Storm Irene last year, according to industry executives. The increases, which must be approved by the state, will likely affect most of the state's nearly 2 million policy holders, and if approved, homeowners will see their rates go up when they renew or buy new...

In this country, obstruction of justice is a crime. As a physician, I wonder why obstruction of health care is not a crime. Increasingly, in my clinical practice, my office has to contend with denials by health insurers of tests and medical treatments that I believe are important to the care of my patients. Why should a health care insurer be permitted to override my judgment about the health needs of my patients, when I know the patient better, and am better qualified as a board-certified physician to make such judgments than the so-called highly qualified reviewer that the insurer...

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate challenging Republican Senator Scott Brown, took home more than $700,000 in compensation from teaching and consulting fees over a two-year period from 2010 to 2011, according to her most recent financial disclosure form. Over that same period, she was collecting a six-figure salary for two consecutive federal government appointments. She earned about $165,300 from September 2010 through August 2011 as a special adviser to President Obama, setting up the consumer protection agency she helped establish.

This story was reported by Globe Spotlight Team members Scott Allen, Marcella Bombardieri, Michael Rezendes, and editor Thomas Farragher, as well as Liz Kowalczyk and Jeffrey Krasner of the Globe staff. It was written by Allen and Bombardieri, and was originally published on Nov. 16, 2008. As his patient lies waiting in an adjacent exam room, Dr. James D. Alderman watches while an assistant reaches into a white envelope and pulls out a piece of paper that will determine where the man will be treated.

When Boston annexed Hyde Park 100 years ago, Herman Bean bought a simple Victorian with a fenced-in yard on a bend of River Street. The house was a pinnacle of achievement for the African-American factory worker. Five generations of Beans would grow up there, in what is still considered one of the city's safest, more scenic, and, some would argue, suburblike neighborhoods. But in recent years, Bean's descendants and hundreds of other residents of a triangular section on the neighborhood's border had to battle the US Postal Service in order to establish that they are, in fact, in Hyde...

Massachusetts health insurance companies will pay $45 million in rebates to health insurance customers and employers after failing last year to devote enough money to claims and quality improvement, according to a study of preliminary filings published Thursday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Some 38,722 people who are individually insured will get average rebates of $148.61, the foundation estimated. But the bulk of the rebate money will go to to businesses with group health care plans, rather than to individuals, it found.

In this country, obstruction of justice is a crime. As a physician, I wonder why obstruction of health care is not a crime. Increasingly, in my clinical practice, my office has to contend with denials by health insurers of tests and medical treatments that I believe are important to the care of my patients. Why should a health care insurer be permitted to override my judgment about the health needs of my patients, when I know the patient better, and am better qualified as a board-certified physician to make such judgments than the so-called highly qualified reviewer...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama, struggling with a political storm that hasthreatened to keep building, announced a birth control compromise today that he said would both protect religious liberties and ensure that the nation's women have access to free contraception. After weeks of growing controversy, Obama backed off a recently announced requirement for religious-affiliated employers to provide free birth control coverage even if it runs counter to their beliefs.

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year. State Farm Insurance, one of the nation's largest home insurers, paid more than $109 million on about 3,800 dog bite claims nationwide last year, spokesman Eddie Martinez said Wednesday. In 2010, there were about 3,500 claims and $90 million in payouts. The Insurance Information Institute estimated that nearly $479 million in dog bite claims were paid by all insurance companies in 2011, spokeswoman Loretta Worters said.

A study published in a U.S. medical journal says mosquito-borne dengue disease costs Puerto Rico nearly $40 million a year for treatment, surveillance and other expenditures. A team of researchers from Brandeis University says households in the U.S. territory pay almost half of that cost, with the government and insurance companies splitting the rest. Puerto Rico had its largest ever dengue outbreak in 2010 with more than 12,000 suspected cases and a record 31 deaths. At least 77 cases have been reported so far this year, above the historic average.

This story was reported by Globe Spotlight Team members Scott Allen, Marcella Bombardieri, Michael Rezendes, and editor Thomas Farragher, as well as Liz Kowalczyk and Jeffrey Krasner of the Globe staff. It was written by Allen and Bombardieri, and was originally published on Nov. 16, 2008. As his patient lies waiting in an adjacent exam room, Dr. James D. Alderman watches while an assistant reaches into a white envelope and pulls out a piece of paper that will determine where the man will be treated.

Massachusetts health insurance companies will pay $45 million in rebates to health insurance customers and employers after failing last year to devote enough money to claims and quality improvement, according to a study of preliminary filings published Thursday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Some 38,722 people who are individually insured will get average rebates of $148.61, the foundation estimated. But the bulk of the rebate money will go to to businesses with group health care plans, rather than to individuals, it found.

Insurance companies will have to return more than $1 billion this year to consumers and businesses, thanks to a new requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a report released Thursday concludes. That's real money, says Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzed industry filings with state insurance commissioners. The law requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care and quality improvements — or issue rebates to policyholders.

An estimated 1 in 10 people, or 36 million in the United States, suffer from migraine, according to the Migraine Research Foundation. The majority are not candidates for surgery. Dr. W.G. (Jay) Austen, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, estimates that no more than 5 percent of migraine sufferers are candidates for the nerve decompression technique he is pioneering in Boston. To be a candidate for this surgery, a patient must: ■ Be under the treatment of a neurologist.

MONTPELIER - The Internal Revenue Service is dropping plans to change regulations that some believe could have hurt one of Vermont's key financial industries. The proposal would have prohibited captive insurance companies from deducting from their corporate taxes the value of reserves they have set aside to pay claims. The change was opposed by Vermont's congressional delegation and Governor Jim Douglas. "IRS officials listened, and they were willing to pull back an overly broad rule change that did not make sense for self-insuring companies," US Senator Patrick Leahy said...

WHILE HER COLLEAGUES ARE COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS, Rebecca Alves is one kindergarten teacher dreading the end of the school year. She suffers from a rare autoimmune disorder called Devic's disease and has been told by her insurer that on July 1 it will stop paying for the $12,000-a-month infusions she's been taking for seven years. It will pay for a different treatment, but Alves and her doctor both believe switching could be dangerous. "The medicine has saved my life," says Alves, a 39-year-old mother of a 13-year-old girl.

WASHINGTON - It would be the health insurance industry's worst nightmare: if the Supreme Court strikes down the mandate that individuals obtain coverage but leaves the rest of President Obama's signature law intact. Most concerning, industry representatives say, would be the requirement to cover people with preexisting medical conditions without the ability to charge higher premiums for the sickliest. Without the premiums of healthier people brought into the system by the mandate, individual insurance premiums could rise up to 40 percent, making it...