Legislation is currently pending in the Oklahoma legislature that proponents say would privatize its nonprofit workers compensation insurance fund and turn it into a private domestic mutual insurance company.

The Texas Legislature introduced bills last week that would sever the last controls the state has over Texas Mutual Insurance Co.its largest workers-compensation insurerwhile authorizing the state to set up an assigned-risk plan.

House Democrats are demanding an explanation as to why the Federal Housing Finance Agency prohibited Fannie Mae from executing a plan to introduce new specialty lenders into the forced-place insurance market.

Former AIG Chairman and CEO Maurice Hank Greenberg called the intervention by the federal government in the company a nationalization in a Washington public appearance on Thursday.

The CEO of AIG, Robert Benmosche, put himself at odds with critics within the financial services industry and Congress opposed to higher capital standards when he said they are justified given the 2008 financial crisis.

The Federal Reserve appears to be reiterating that it will use bank-centric standards opposed by the insurance industry in regulating insurance companies that operate thriftsalthough some industry trade groups are disputing that interpretation.

Starr becomes the second recent entrant into the crop-insurance market after years of consolidation.

Crop-insurance losses in 2012 due to drought conditions amount to a record $14.2 billion, and are continuing to climb, industry officials were told Wednesday.