IPOs are back
WGA client, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, completed their initial public offering of stock earlier this week. Ironwood sold 16.7 million shares at $11.25 per share. They ended up their first day of trading up by more than 3%. The gross proceeds of over $187 MM were the most raised by a biotechnology R & D company since 2002. Their post-IPO market capitalization is over $1B.
One significant new expense for a company going public is the greatly heightened cost of Directors & Officers Liability Insurance. This is due to the increase in risk exposures arising out of a plethora of new shareholders. Securities litigation, in particular, becomes much more likely for publicly-traded companies. Read more…
Costs are up for lost records
The Ponemon Institute recently released its 2009 data breach figures. The average cost per customer record lost is up to $204, $2 higher than 2008, and the average total cost per company is now $6.75 million. The sample size is relatively small – 45 companies.
It should be noted that many costs associated with a breach (i.e. notification costs, credit monitoring, investigative costs, etc.) are subject to sublimits under most, if not all, Privacy Liability policies. The sublimit is typically equal to 10% to 20% of the limit of liability ($100,000 on a $1MM policy). This is not much Read more…
The new Health Care Reform landscape without a super majority
The election of Scott Brown to the US Senate will have a profound impact on the White House strategy to move health care reform through Congress. But while many in the press and infact the halls of Congress are declaring Health Care Reform DOA, insiders are providing glimpses of how President Obama plans to move forward given the new landscape. The White House and leadership have determined that passing nothing would be a worse political outcome than using a series of complex maneuvers to pass something. Here are the possible options. Read more…
Being compliant under Health Care Reform, it’s complicated
As discussions with my clients shift from “if” to “when” will health reform pass, CFOs and HR managers are expectedly anxious and concerned about protocols and penalties associated with the new rules under Obamacare. For Massachusetts companies, many of the plan design and credible plan requirements were resolved way back in 1996 under small group reform or recently under the 2007 Mass Health reform law. In fact, much of what we are seeing in both the House and Senate versions of reform mirror the Mass reform program in many respects. There is however a potential catch-22 involved with the cost of having a compliant plan; that issue is the Senate pay-for “Cadillac” tax. Read more…
Ask the Experts: Network Security & Privacy Liability
This past Sunday’s Boston Globe reported that one million Massachusetts residents have had credit card numbers, medical records, or other personal information leaked or stolen over the course of the past two years. This startling report, coupled with recent legislation on both the federal and state levels, has many of corporate insurance buyers feeling anxious about security and privacy. This installment of “Ask the Experts” takes a look at the coverages available and questions to ask when analyzing these coverages.
First national drug and saftey network will help limit liability
The recent merger of the iconic Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR®) found in every physician’s office, clinic and hospital, with the Health Care Notification Network (HCNN), the only network that delivers FDA-required drug Alerts to physicians and other prescribers online, has created a new combined service that provides FDA-required Alerts, monthly specialty-specific clinical updates and a copy of the 64th edition of the PDR with regular insert updates to all to medical providers. This effort to minimize “information errors” is a crucial step for prescribers of medicines across the healthcare spectrum. Read more…
Taking a closer look at the manager’s amendment to the healthcare bill
The final Senate Healthcare Bill was released earlier this week with a Manager’s Amendment. Taking a glass half full look at the amendment, a number of the changes have been identified as employer-friendly, such as the elimination of a public plan option, stronger penalties for non-compliance with the individual mandate (designed as motivation to find health insurance coverage) and a $600 penalty for employers who impose a waiting period for health coverage of longer than 60 days, replacing the 30 day limit contained in the original version.
Read more…
Ask the Experts: The advantages of a group excess program
A Group Excess Liability program is a master umbrella policy issued to the sponsoring organization or employer that provides additional coverage to participants.
CNA study reinforces need for strong risk management strategies
CNA HealthPro Insurance just announced the results of their latest annual survey titled Reducing Risk in a Changing Industry: CNA HealthPro Aging Services Claims Analysis 2004-2008. One interesting aspect of this study is CNA’s ability to break down claims information between the for-profit and the not-for-profit health care sectors. Some of the results make sense but some are quite surprising. So, it is not very surprising that claim frequency overall is lower in the not-for-profit sector. But, why, for example, are patient falls (the greatest source of claims at nursing homes) almost 20% more likely in not-for-profit settings? Are there some risk management techniques that the for-profit sector can teach the not-for-profit sector here? This study certainly confirms some historical trends and highlights the need to sound fundamental risk management strategies.
Health care reform negotiations continue
It looked as though Senate Democratic health care negotiators agreed this week to replace a government-run insurance option with a scaled-back non-profit plan. The government-run plan, one of the biggest hurdles in the health care overhaul, would be replaced by a plan operated by private insurers but administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises health coverage for federal workers.
Now, in an effort to get a bill passed before Christmas, a group of ten Democratic Senators offered to take a “public option” off the table in exchange for a substantial expansion of Medicare. Read more…
