For Earth Day 2023: We need to act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably)  April 21st 2023

The History Of Earth Day

At a Glance

Earth Day began in 1970.

The first Earth Day brought more than 20 million Americans to the streets to participate in demonstrations concerning the suffering environment.

The successful country-wide involvement led to the creation of several environment-protecting laws, as well as the EPA. Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.

T​he environment wasn't in great shape in the late 1960s. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn't exist. Neither did the Clean Air Act nor the Clean Water Act. According to the EPA, before the 1970s, there were no legal or regulatory mechanisms in effect to protect the environment. Factories pumped toxic smoke into the atmosphere and dumped toxic sludge into nearby streams to the detriment of public health and nearby wildlife, with little to no legal repercussions.

Senator Gaylord Nelson, a junior senator from Wisconsin, concerned about the state of the environment, created Earth Day as a way to bring awareness to issue. He was inspired by the student anti-war protests, as well as the aftermath of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, which spilled roughly 3 million gallons of crude oil into the Santa Barbara Channel.

‘Top 10 Influences’ on the Collision Repair Industry Among the Discussion at CIC

Frank Terlep kicked off his first Collision Industry Conference as chairman this year by sharing what he sees as the “Top 10 influences” most likely “to affect our industry.” They include continued employee shortages, parts challenges and economic uncertainties. Consolidation also won’t slow down any time soon, he said.

“I predict you’re going to see a couple of the ‘mid-market’ consolidators come together,” Terlep said at the meeting held in Palm Springs, CA.

He said independent collision repairers will “continue to become part of something bigger,” whether that’s a franchise, network or 20 Group, or growing from one store to two or more.

“The major consolidators will continue to move more toward a greenfield model than a brownfield model,” he said. And the “ton” of continued consolidation among new-car dealers “is also going to drive bigger, larger dealer-based collision repair groups.”

Terlep called ADAS calibration work “the biggest business opportunity this industry has seen in the last 20 years,” but said it’s also “the biggest opportunity to fail.”

AI set to exponentially improve insurance efficiency

Artificial intelligence technology such as ChatGPT will quickly lead to radical improvements in insurance underwriting and claims handling, insurance industry executives said.

Using AI to gather and analyze information will improve risk mitigation and allow insurers to take a more sophisticated approach to pricing, they said.

And the benefits will be so big that any efforts to slow the adoption of AI are likely to fail.

Large language models such as ChatGPT are not being used to change the business model for the insurance sector, but they will make current processes much more efficient, said Ericson Chan, Zurich-based group chief information and digital officer at Zurich Insurance Co. Ltd.

He was speaking at the Insurance AI and Innovative Tech USA 2023 conference sponsored by Reuters News & Media Ltd. in Chicago last week.

The insurance industry is already processing large amounts of information from claims documents, risk engineering reports and other documents, he said.

“In order to extract the information from tens, hundreds or thousands of documents, these models are very efficient,” Mr. Chan said.

GenAI meets InsurTech: a game-changing duo?

ChatGPT brought GenAI into the limelight this year, stirring up conversations about how AI might impact the world as we know it.

The chatbot developed by OpenAI was estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch. By comparison, it took TikTok nine months after its global launch to reach that number, and Instagram, around two years.

Generative AI comprised less than 1% of total US venture capital (VC) funding of $238.3bn in 2022, according to PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). But an estimated 450 startups and several new funds for generative AI indicate the potential for growth.

Viju Shamanna, vice president, AI Lab at Ushur, said, “Part of the excitement surrounding ChatGPT 3.5 and Large Language Models (LLMs) over the last few months can be attributed to the fact that they are now easily accessible to the public through a simple conversational interface.”

In addition to essays and poems, it generates emails, blog posts, and code snippets and can handle long-form conversations through prompting.

Are insurers deploying the right smart home tech?

From water leak sensors, to shut off valves, cameras, and beyond, smart home device adoption continues to surge. Statista forecasts 478.2 million smart homes will exist by 2025, up from just over 300 million in 2022. Additionally, Parks Associates reports that 38% of U.S. households owned at least one smart home device in 2022, up 2% from the year prior. Homeowners are turning to connected devices to simplify everyday tasks and monitor their spaces. Insurance carriers have taken notice and smart home programs continue to grow in popularity among policyholders who can often receive devices for free from their insurer by enrolling in these programs.

Smart home insurance programs are aimed at helping carriers reduce claims by providing homeowners with the tech they need to better monitor their spaces and catch issues before they become costly headaches. Take water leaks for example which can result in lengthy repairs, restoration and insurance claims resulting in thousands of dollars in losses – more on that in just a bit. While it's great progress to see insurers and homeowners embracing smart home tech more and more each year, are they turning to the right solutions that can truly make an impact and result in the greatest return on investment (ROI) possible?

Smart home insurance programs are aimed at helping carriers reduce claims by providing homeowners with the tech they need to better monitor their spaces and catch issues before they become costly headaches. Take water leaks for example which can result in lengthy repairs, restoration and insurance claims resulting in thousands of dollars in losses – more on that in just a bit. While it's great progress to see insurers and homeowners embracing smart home tech more and more each year, are they turning to the right solutions that can truly make an impact and result in the greatest return on investment (ROI) possible?

Litigation funding blamed for spiking insurance settlements - but is that really true?

In some corners of the legal profession, litigation funding is viewed as a factor in the emergence of so-called nuclear settlements in civil litigation. But as is often the case when litigation funding is discussed, there’s not much middle ground.

Nuclear settlements have been defined as a large settlement based mainly on intangibles, like pain and suffering, rather than more concrete forms of damages, such as medical bills. And defense lawyers say nuclear settlements fit handily into their concept of social inflation, a term used to explain the high cost of civil litigation.

Critics of the role of litigation funding say it causes trials and other proceedings to run longer, raising the costs of litigation.

Geico faces class action for failing to pay title, transfer fees

The U.S. District Court in New Jersey granted plaintiff Diane McCoy class certification in her claim brought against Geico which alleged breach of contract after a 2018 collision rendered her vehicle a total loss, and the insurer failed to pay title or transfer fees for the vehicle.

According to the opinion, McCoy filed her complaint on May 6, 2020, and alleged that she suffered a total loss of her insured vehicle and made a covered claim for physical damage under the collision and comprehensive coverages of her policy. That policy defines the actual cash value with respect to collision and comprehensive coverages as the “replacement cost of the auto or property less depreciation or betterment.” The complaint alleged that Geico does not pay the agreed-on replacement costs because it fails to pay costs such as transfer fees and registration transfer fees.

AAA Steps Up to Offer Insurance for TikTok-Famous, Stealable Hyundais

The software rollout started in February, and availability for the later models is happening a few months earlier than Hyundai's previously announced schedule.

Hyundai's new code is meant for affected vehicles without a built-in electronic immobilizer. The update makes it so that the TikTok method won't work because the cars now require a physical key to deactivate the new "ignition kill" feature. Hyundai (and Kia, which also has affected vehicles) has made it clear how important it is to install this update and said any Hyundai dealership could perform the update, which should take less than an hour.

One Insurer That's Not Walking Away In addition to that, the automaker announced last week it is partnering with AAA to offer insurance coverage for affected vehicles. That may not sound like much of a deal, but earlier this year, both State Farm and Progressive said they would no longer accept new policies for the easily stolen models or raised prices, so having at least one guaranteed coverage provider sure is better than none.