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 A public adjuster who is accused of pocketing insurance payouts intended for policyholders took a total of $7.9 million from 14 customers, including four churches, according to an amended complaint filed by the Texas Department of Insurance. The Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings has scheduled an Oct. 12 hearing on the Insurance Department’s petition to revoke the public adjuster license issued to Andrew Joseph Mitchell and shut down several unlicensed businesses that he operated, including Mitchell Adjusting International. The department on Sept. 23 filed an amended petition that names new victims and increases the total alleged losses. A spokesman told the Claims Journal that the department cannot comment on whether it has referred the Mitchell case to criminal prosecutors. Mitchell’s attorney, David W. Alexander of League City, Texas, said in an email that his client “denies that he intentionally misappropriated policyholders’ money “For that reason, he is answering ...

Insurance News Update:   While some analysts are predicting that the property insurance industry will be able to manage Hurricane Ian and its estimated $50 billion in insured losses, a few are now warning that the storm could significantly erode the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund’s surplus, which could spell trouble for carriers who may face soaring reinsurance costs next year. An analysis by Chicago-based Ian Gutter man, a longtime investor in insurance companies and founder of a startup homeowners insurance company, put it bluntly.  “From my point of view, the risk to the system is that the FHCF is the finger holding back the dam,” Gutterman wrote this week in a blog post. “If it gets removed, most of the local insurers are going to get washed away.” The post has elicited a range of reactions from leaders in the Florida insurance industry. “He’s not right on everything, but he’s pretty warm,” said John Rollins, an actuary and former chief financial officer at Olympu...

  Democrat John Fetterman is hanging on to a six percentage-point lead   over Republican Mehmet Oz   in the nation's most closely watched Senate race, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll of Pennsylvania finds, stoking Democratic hopes of keeping control of the Senate in the midterms. The Pennsylvania contest is believed to be the best shot Democrats have to pick up a Senate seat now held by a Republican. A victory in the Keystone State would mean an endangered Democratic incumbent elsewhere could lose re-election and not cost the party the 50-50 split that now gives it control.  Fetterman, the state's lieutenant governor, was backed by 46% of those surveyed. Oz, a celebrity doctor endorsed by former president Donald Trump, was backed by 40%. That's closer than the nine-point lead, 46%-37%, that Fetterman held in the USA TODAY/Suffolk survey taken in June. In the contest for governor, Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, is pulling awa...

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Shannon Tolbert and her cousins had no power two days after Hurricane Ian made landfall, so they cooled off in the shade of a compact SUV trunk Friday afternoon in front of the house. They live in Dunbar, a historically Black area of Fort Myers that also houses a growing Hispanic and Latino population. Lining the roads were uprooted trees, straggled power lines, piles of fence remnants and storm debris from Ian’s Category 4 winds. “Every time we have a storm, we’re the last ones to get power,” said Tolbert's cousin, lifetime Dunbar resident Valorie Simmons, steel factory worker. Simmons' daughter Cherell Lindsey nodded along with Tolbert's daughter, who was lounging in the SUV's back seat. “It’s expected," Simmons said. "Where it's Black and brown people ... we get it last." Black residents of Dunbar said they fear the aftermath of Hurricane Ian will be no different, saying the city’s wealthier, majority-white neighborhoods...

Sterling Shepard's 2021 season ended early when he tore his left Achilles tendon in a December game against the Dallas Cowboys. On Monday — again against the Cowboys — Shepard appeared to sustain another significant injury. On the final Giants snap of the game, Shepard pulled up on a route and clutched his left knee. He wasn't touched on the play. He fell to the ground in obvious pain and eventually left the field on a cart. The Giants didn't provide a diagnosis after the 23-16 loss. But head coach Brian Daboll acknowledged that "it didn't look good." If it is a season-ending injury, it marks another brutal blow for one of the franchise's most beloved players. Prior to his Achilles tear, Shepard's 2020 campaign was limited to seven games because of injury. Now his comeback appears to be cut short just three games in after he worked to be ready for Week 1. His contract is expiring after he agreed to void the final year of his deal. Shepard's played ...

  The parent company of Instagram, Meta, was fined €405 million for improper handling of adolescent data. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued the final verdict and penalties. According to Meta, “we disagree with the methodology used to determine this fine and intend to challenge it”. The parent company of Instagram, Meta, was fined €405 million for improper handling of adolescent data. Following an inquiry into the firm’s data handling procedures, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued the final verdict and penalties. The DPC made its decision last Friday, promising to provide “complete details” this week. Two years prior, when the inquiry first began, it was concentrated on two ways the social network had broken the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws. The first breach occurred as a result of Instagram allowing users between the ages of 13 and 17 to create business accounts, making their personal data accessible to the public. Instagram also by ...