The Utah Legislature approved a bill restricting fees that municipalities can charge after an accident occurs.

While the industry tries to get a handle on losses coming from Japan in the wake of the recent earthquake, insurers in California can expect to see business interruption and other claims from damage caused to marinas by tsunami waves that hit the coast.

Shortly after industry lawyers called conflicts over the scope of the Financial Stability Oversight Council the “cutting-edge issue” for insurance regulation, an industry report labeled the Federal Insurance Office the “biggest wildcard” in regulatory reform.

After a panel of excess-and-surplus lines industry leaders recently expressed concerns about insurers abandoning the wholesale-distribution channel, two E&S carrier executives reiterated their commitment to both wholesaler brokers and surplus-lines business.

Based on property and casualty companies’ pre-announcements and other data, losses from the Feb. 22 New Zealand earthquake damages could be as much as three-times worse than the September quake in the same region, Morgan Stanley said.

The role of the Federal Insurance Office is “the biggest wildcard in regulatory reform,” and the agency “could very well end up having a significant effect on insurer operations and costs,” according to a Deloitte report.

In a soft market, excess and surplus-lines executives have managed to identify some growth areas and have found the time ripe for technology investments and recruiting talent. But survival demands innovation.

Of the 14,625 suspected health care fraud reports that the New York State Insurance Department received, 12,807 of them involved the state’s no-fault system, according to the insurance superintendent’s annual fraud report.