According to the Employers Small Business Opinion Poll, younger insurance customers are increasingly expecting to obtain insurance coverage through online channels and to interact with insurance professionals via the same means.

Members of the so-called “Generation Y,” who are 18 to 25 years of age, represent an unusually entrepreneurial demographic, with approximately 46 percent expecting to start their own business within 5 years. Having been essentially raised online, they assume the tools will be present to manage services and resources for themselves and their future employees online.

Seventy percent of this same population voiced the expectation that their insurance provider will be tech savvy, with 86 percent wanting access to online insurance quotes. Eighty-three percent want online customer service; 81 percent online policy management; and 79 percent prefer online payment options.

Generation X, consumers that fall in the 26 to 45 age range, are more mixed in their attitude toward online resources, with utilization dwindling at the higher end of the age bracket. Many Baby Boomers, ages 46 to 65, have only limited experience with the Internet and largely prefer more traditional means of interaction including face-to-face meetings.

Many major insurers have lagged behind with their Internet-based tools, using websites primarily as a means to gather customer contact information to generate a telephone conversation. Driven by the needs of this emerging young business class, however, companies will be compelled over the next five years to offer more full-featured web-based interfaces. This should have benefits in terms of efficiency and ease of access and could effect prices if fewer personnel are needed to handle customers and claims.

The Small Business Opinion Poll sampled the input of 1,258 consumers through telephone interviews conducted in June 2010.

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, there are more than 1 million homes in 43 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties that sit on top of abandoned mines that could be subject to subsidence or settling.

Although the state has a subsidized insurance program at affordable rates — just $97 per $150,000 of coverage — only 58,000 policies have been issued.

Homeowners whose property sits on top of working minds don’t need the coverage. By state law, mine owners are responsible for any damage caused by subsidence. This is not the case with abandoned mines and typically, standard homeowners policies don’t cover instances of subsidence.

The one “catch” in the program is that each structure on a property requires an independent policy. For instance, if a home has a detached garage, a separate policy must be taken out to cover that building.

Normally, subsidence does not cause the kind of catastrophic damage people may imagine. Cracks to sidewalks, foundations, and walls are most common, although it is possible for homes to tilt, sink, or collapse entirely.

In 2008, the DEP processed 227 claims of which 27 were approved and paid out, totaling just more than $1 million in damages.

Tom Hoffman, a former Consol Energy vice president living in the South Hills of Pennsylvania bought the coverage. “My house is 60 years old, and for 60 years there has not been any subsidence here,” he said. Recently, however, there was an incident of subsidence about a quarter of a mile away. “Like all insurance,” he said, “you may never use it.”

According to a study by the Society of Actuaries, the economic cost of an overweight, obese population in the United States and Canada is almost $300 billion annually, with $270 billion, about 90 percent, attributed directly to the United States.

The study defined “overweight” as a BMI of 25.0-29.9 with a BMI of more than 20 qualifying as obese. The researchers looked specifically at increased necessity for medical care and a loss of economic productivity due to disability or death.

The economic costs were broken down specifically, with $127 billion for excess medical care, $49 billion to loss of productivity due to death, $43 billion in lost productivity for active workers due to disability, and $72 billion for totally disabled workers.

“We found substantial evidence that overweight and obesity are becoming world-wide epidemics, and are having negative impacts on health and mortality,” said actuary Don Behan, an independent consulting actuary and one of two researchers who reviewed almost 500 articles on obesity. “As actuaries, we are working with the insurance industry to help incentivize consumers through their health plan design to focus on health and wellness, which will hopefully help curb the weight and health problems we face today.”

“Overweight and obesity have been shown to increase the rate of several common adverse medical conditions, resulting in this extraordinary economic cost to society,” said Behan. “We can’t stand back and ignore the fact that overweight and obesity are drivers of cost increases and detrimental economic effects. It’s time for actuaries, the employer community and the insurance industry to take action and help consumers make smart, healthy decisions.”

On December 31, 2010 a new law took effect in Missouri requiring insurers in the state to cover the cost of autism treatments, relieving thousands of families of some of the deep financial burden of providing for their special needs children.

Governor Jay Nixon said of the new law, “It’s vitally important to thousands of families and one of the most important things I’ll ever do.” The statute compels insurers to cover $40,000 a year of “applied behavioral analysis” for children up to age 18, with a provision for the cap to be raised every three years to keep up with inflation.

The term “autism” addresses a range of neurological disorders currently affecting 1 out of 110 children in this country. Autistic children often have behavioral and communication issues that adversely affect their social skills. Many parents say that the intensive therapy covered by the new insurance law returns dramatic improvements.

The mandate, however, will cover only a quarter of the state’s population, primarily those receiving insurance from small to medium-sized employers. Large employers who insure themselves fall under federal regulation. People with individual policies will have the option to buy autism coverage.

Even with these limitations, however, the law has been hailed by autism activist groups as an important step forward for people who have long fought insurance companies to receive benefits to deal with the challenging effects of the condition.

The results of a groundbreaking study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia revealed that a major portion of the tests performed by doctors fall under the category of defensive medicine, prescribed by physicians to protect themselves from potential lawsuits rather than out of medical necessity.

Seventy-two orthopedic surgeons agreed to track the tests they ordered, which, over the duration of the study involved 2,068 patients, most of whom were adults. Interactions with these individuals occurred during regular office visits, trips to the emergency room, and in other settings.

Of the total tests administered, 20 percent could be termed “defensive.” Broken down by type, the numbers pointed to 11 percent of X-rays, 39 percent of MRIs, 33 percent of CAT scans, 57 percent of bone scans, and 53 percent of ultrasounds.

In doctors who had faced a malpractice lawsuit in the past five years, the level of defensive testing rose markedly. Interestingly, the announcement of the test results at the meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in California on February 16 came one day after the Obama administration proposed an overall of state medical malpractice statutes to curb spurious lawsuits.

Dr. John Flynn, of the Children’s Hospital said, “This study is a glimpse behind the curtain of what’s happening in a doctor’s mind. Doctors who fear patients will second-guess their diagnosis or otherwise present potential trouble that could turn legal will likely order more tests to protect themselves. In most cases patients do not realize that pushing for more testing in the belief it leads to greater accuracy only results in higher bills, greater health care costs, and unnecessary exposure to radiation.