Insurance Blog

Archive for the ‘Commercial Auto Insurance’ Category

???

This question makes no sense, without something to compare it to – like, as opposed to being uninsured and illegal.

It’s not common for someone to qualify for both a personal and a commercial auto policy – so it’s not like you’re going to have a CHOICE which kind of policy to buy.

Figures from Citigroup suggest that US consumers are in a mood to spend up a bit this festive season, which starts tonight, a day after Thanksgiving.

But more realistic analysts wonder if this in fact be the worst season in 22 years.

Citi reckons the worst year was 2007 when the rise in festive season sales in America’s shops was 0.7% from the day after Thanksgiving to the close of trade Christmas Eve.

That’s only a year ago, and 1.2 million more people are out of work and millions more have either left the workforce, or are on short hours and shorter working weeks.

Citigroup reckons sales will rise by up to 1% this year, which seems to be a bit optimistic.

Besides the battered state consumers find themselves in compared to a year ago, the overall US economy is unhealthier. Growth in the December quarter a year ago was marginally negative.

This quarter it could be sharply down by up to 5% according to an estimate from Goldman Sachs this week.

Despite Citi’s optimism, it’s hard to see how US consumers will rouse their animal spirits and go shopping: not with house prices at four year lows, new and existing home sales at multi-year lows, retail sales slumping, car sales down 32% and at multi-year lows and consumer confidence at near record lows.

On top of this, more than half a million people have been registering for unemployment benefits in each of the past four weeks. So it’s hardly the sort of season to make consumers jolly and want to spend.

Consumer credit is in short supply as lenders cut credit cards and home equity limits.

The severe impact of the credit crunch on US households and businesses was again shown this week with the latest figures showing yet another slump in new home sales, consumer spending and orders for durable goods in October (AKA The Black Hole).

Sales of newly built US single-family homes dropped last month to levels last seen more than 17 years ago, according to data from the US Commerce Department.

Third quarter US growth contracted by the biggest amount since 2001 (0.5%) but those figures for October suggest that growth this quarter will sink 4%-5% (annual rate), which would be the worst for a decade or more.

US consumer spending dropped 1.0% in October, larger than expected. But it shouldn’t have been after car sales plunged 32% in the month and retail sales a record 2.8%.

The Commerce Department figures showed the sharp drop in spending came even as incomes rose 0.3% in the month and inflation eased

But the news got worse: the Commerce Department also reported that orders for big-ticket durable goods fell a huge 6.2% in October, without a strike or hurricane to blame, as there was for August’s big drop.

That’s bad news for US manufacturing and for exports, the one part of the economy still showing life.

The drop in durable goods, such as planes, automobiles and refrigerators, was sharper than the 2.5% cut forecast by the market.

Orders fell faster than sales, which means there will be more pressure on employment early in the new year.

A separate report said 529,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were made; down some 13,000 on the figure for the previous week, but the fourth week in a row that more than half a million claims have been made for the first time, a chilling statistic.

The day before the second reading on third quarter growth was worse than expected: it shrank 0.5% compared with the first estimate of -0.3%.

Overall spending by consumers plunged by nearly $US80 billion, or 3.7%, the biggest percentage drop in 28 years. (The drop in retail sales alone was 2.8%).

Next week we will get the car sales figures for November and they won’t be pretty either.

But it wasn’t just falling consumer spending that weakened the US economy in the September quarter. Business equipment spending fell a nasty 5.7% while investment in housing continued to fall, this time down by 17.6%.

The US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve announced a new $US200 billion program to make more money available for consumer loans, such as credit cards, auto loans and student borrowing.

The Fed also upped the ante in spending to support the frozen home loan market by announcing additional $US600 billion to buy mortgage-backed securities in an effort to lower mortgage rates and support home purchases and prices.

It seemed to work because a day later mortgage rates fell sharply, down by 0.25% and more and well under 6% and US 10 year bond yield dropped below 3%.

That was the first significant fall in mortgage rates since the Government and Fed started trying to drive them lower. A small glimmer of light for 2009?

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The US Federal Reserve has now tossed around $US7 trillion at the credit crunch, mostly in the US, to try and stop the economy from being consumed by the credit freeze.

That’s not money all spent, much of it won’t be. It’s ‘credit lines’ and revolving facilities for banks and the commercial paper market for instance and will be repaid and then re-lent again. But the estimate indicates the unprecedented size of the problem.

Some of the US money has been lent around the world in currency swaps and loans and will come back, but that too is an indicator of the seriousness of the economic problems the globe confronts, not just the US.

But America is where the black hole is biggest and where the threat to economic stability is the greatest: that $US7 trillion is equal to around 40% or so of America’s current yearly GDP, which is well above estimates from the IMF about what financial crises cost to repair.

Unfortunately the cost is not being borne just in the US. China, Australia, the UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea and a string of other countries have spent or area spending hundreds of billions of dollars on stimulus packages.

The EC revealed a 200 billion euro ($A390 billion) stimulus package overnight. Spain revealed a two year, 11 billion euro package of its own. Germany a smaller 32 billion euro package.

If you count the cost of the various bank deposit and borrowing schemes around the world, there’s trillions of more dollars committed, but not spent.

Housing remains the central problem and US house prices are falling faster than anyone thinks.

This week the US real estate agents group estimated prices fell more than 11% in the year to October, but that was conservative; try a record 17.4% as measured by the Standard & Poor’s/Case Schiller House Price Index for the year to September.

The Case-Shiller Home Price national index recorded a 16.6% decline in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago. That topped the previous record of 15.1% set during the second quarter.

Prices in Case-Shiller’s separate index of 10 major cities fell a record 18.6%, while its 20-city index dropped a record 17.4%

The 10-city index is now 23.4% off its peak price, which came in June 2006; the 20-city index is down 21.8% from its July 2006 high and the national index is off 21% since the third quarter of 2006.

Home prices in the 10-city index have fallen for 26 consecutive months. The decline has broadened over the past 12 months, with prices dropping in every city of the 20-city index during September.

That means the most accurate gauge of US house prices hasn’t even measured the sharp plunge expected for October.

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And in another worry the number of struggling banks in the US has ballooned, while the number of banks closed escalates.

Three banks were closed last Friday, taking to 22 the number killed off this year and rescued or shut, including Washington Mutual, the biggest failure in US history.

Now, the key rescuer, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has boosted the number of banks it seems as being in trouble from 117 in the second quarter to 171 in the third quarter. That’s the highest for 13 years.

The FDIC said third-quarter earnings among US banks and savings and loans (thrifts) fell 94% to just $US1.73 billion from $US28.7 billion in the same quarter a year ago, driven by higher provisions for loan losses, the FDIC said.

“Troubled assets continued to mount at insured commercial banks and savings institutions in the third quarter of 2008, placing a growing burden on industry earnings.

“Expenses for credit losses topped $50 billion for a second consecutive quarter, absorbing one-third of the industry’s net operating revenue (net interest income plus total noninterest income).

“Third quarter net income totaled $1.7 billion, a decline of $27.0 billion (94.0 percent) from the third quarter of 2007.

“The industry’s quarterly return on assets (ROA) fell to 0.05 percent, compared to 0.92 percent a year earlier. This is the second-lowest quarterly ROA reported by the industry in the past 18 years.

“Evidence of a deteriorating operating environment was widespread.

“A majority of institutions (58.4 percent) reported year-over-year declines in quarterly net income, and an even larger proportion (64.0 percent) had lower quarterly ROAs.

“The erosion in profitability has thus far been greater for larger institutions.”

“Almost one in every four institutions (24.1 percent) reported a net loss for the quarter, the highest percentage in any quarter since the fourth quarter of 1990, and the highest percentage in a third quarter in the 24 years that all insured institutions have reported quarterly earnings,” the FDIC said..

IMPORTANT: AIR reports about financial markets and investment products in the widest sense possible. The AIR website and all its contents is prepared for general information only, and as such, the specific needs, investment objectives or financial situation of any particular user have not been taken into consideration. Individuals should therefore talk with their financial planner or advisor before making any investment decisions.

Australasian Investment Review

Here is La Quinta Business Attorney Sebastian Gibson’s Top Ten:

1. No more free speech for those liberal media types.

 

2. Move the capital from Washington D.C. to Anchorage.

 

3. Free guns for everyone.

 

4. Religion should replace recess in all the schools and economics in all the colleges.

 

5. Drilling in the ANWR and off the coast of California should be mandatory.

 

6. Neiman Marcus should be required to open a store in Alaska.

 

7. Every woman should be required to have their hair in a beehive.

 

8. From now on, Putin shouldn’t be allowed to rear his head in the airspace above Alaska.

 

9. Katie Couric is persona non grata.

 

10. There is only one political party and the name of it rhymes with mepublican.

 

Now here is everything (well, almost everything) you need in business about personal injury, car accidents, brain damage, wrongful deaths, business, real estate, landlord-tenant, homeowners association law, construction, patents, trademarks, corporations, entertainment law, advertising, copyrights, and litigation without making any serious legal missteps.  

If you need to know more about business environmental, international law, election and campaign law, consumer law, class actions, constitutional, internet, publishing, advertising, media, food and wine, hotel and restaurant law, estate planning, wills, trusts, water law, agricultural, insurance law, bad faith, psychologist and psychotherapist defense, education law or child accidents, you can find valuable information by searching for those subjects and adding the words La Quinta business lawyer or La Quinta business attorney to your search terms and looking for other articles by Sebastian Gibson.

 

You can also learn more about any of these business areas of law and how we can assist you as La Quinta business attorneys, or as lawyers in any city, by calling the Law Offices of R. Sebastian Gibson at any of the numbers which can be found on our website at http://www.SebastianGibsonLaw.com  .

 

1. Personal Injury, Car Accidents, Drowning Accidents, Brain Damage, Catastrophic Injuries and Wrongful Deaths in La Quinta – If you’ve had a La Quinta auto, motorcycle, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, bus, train, airplane or car accident of any kind, get the other driver’s information, take camera or cell phone pictures, call the police, get a report, seek medical treatment immediately, call us or another good La Quinta personal injury lawyer, follow up with more medical treatment if you are still hurt, report the accident to your Insurance agent, file a report with the DMV and don’t talk to anyone else or give a recorded statement until you talk with us. If you’ve lost a loved on in an accident, call us or another good La Quinta personal injury lawyer immediately. If you’ve been bitten by a dog, get treatment, call animal control and then call us. If you or someone you know has come close to drowning, seek medical treatment immediately as death or serious injury can still occur hours later.

 

2. La Quinta Business – Put everything in writing and preferably with our help or the help of another good La Quinta business lawyer. Spend money only as you need to. A La Quinta business attorney can tell you where to save costs and how to do it without risking liability. Limit your promises to employees and to customers. Buy insurance. Protect your intellectual property at the outset. Don’t disclose your inventions or any trade secrets to anyone without a non-disclosure agreement. Incorporate as soon as you are profitable. Get legal advice for problems or indications of pending lawsuits immediately. Keep all costs, including labor costs, to the bare minimum. Always use confidentiality agreements when disclosing valuable information and be careful what information you agree to receive. Tell customers they must pay in advance or on delivery. Do not agree to bill and be paid at a date after delivery. Otherwise you won’t be paid on a percentage of your products. Be wary of the potential for fraud by customers, business partners and employees.

 

3. Residential and Commercial Real Estate, Landlord Tenant Law, Mortgage Law and Homeowners Association Law in La Quinta – Use a La Quinta real estate lawyer who is also a Realtor, or a Realtor who is also a La Quinta real estate attorney. Don’t buy or lease more than you need. Choose the right location. Choose the right mortgage. Don’t refinance if you think you may need to walk away from a home. Don’t buy more than you can afford. Check out the neighborhood carefully. Get a home inspection and a home warranty. Have a La Quinta real estate lawyer look over the documents. Homeowner Associations are facing a host of problems stemming from the number of foreclosures. As fees are reduced by vacant homes and condos, projects must be trimmed back or delayed in order to save money. Some homeowner associations, who were already in trouble, may face additional problems in the future and both homeowners and their associations should consult with legal counsel to help resolve how to deal with such issues.

 

4. Construction in La Quinta – With the construction industry in it’s biggest ever slump, down more than 90% from its peak in many areas, La Quinta contractors need to shift their focus to energy free homes, apartment construction and to take advantage of contracts likely to be offered for bid under the new administration’s plan to create new jobs rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, construction of roads, bridges, the electrical grid and other utility projects. If you are dealing with contractors yourself, always use licensed contractors and have a La Quinta construction lawyer look over your contracts. You can also investigate the contractor online to ensure he is licensed and insured and a La Quinta construction attorney can do an additional investigation at little extra cost. Never pay a contractor the entire sum for a project at the start. Put all agreements in writing, including any changes.

 

5. La Quinta Patents and Biotechnology – A patent should be applied for, for any new, and non-obvious process, or invention and to any new improvement of an invention at first opportunity. A patent is good for 20 years. Depending upon the complexity, most utility patent applications will cost between $8,000 and $12,000.00. A design patent can be applied for by a La Quinta patent attorney, for the look of an item and is good for 14 years. A provisional patent can be applied for, good for one year at a cost of half of the usual utility patent cost but is only good for one year. If the inventor does not upgrade the provisional patent into a utility patent application within that period, usually for the cost of the remainder of the corresponding cost of a utility patent, the inventor loses his or her protection. A patent is pending once it has been applied for, and can be licensed, or sold outright. Without a patent, others can make and sell your invention with no compensation to you. Patent searches help the La Quinta patent lawyer write an application around existing patents and cost an additional sum, usually under $1,000.00. Drawings must also be prepared for the patent application usually for under $500.00. A design patent can be sought for between $1,000 to $1,500 and a European design patent for between $2,000 to $2,500. Accelerated patent applications usually cost an additional 50% of normal patent applications. Foreign patent applications also require additional fees.

 

6. La Quinta Trademarks – Trademark any original logos, designs, words, phrases, symbols or combinations that you use to identify your products or services as soon as possible. Call a La Quinta trademark attorney as soon as anyone else’s trademark or service mark is so similar as to cause a likelihood of confusion in the public or if you receive a cease and desist letter from someone else accusing you of infringement. Trademark applications range from between $2,500 if there has not yet been any use of the trademark to $1,500 to apply for a trademark already in use. Therefore, to save money, create some products and advertising materials and apply for the trademark once they are ready to be sold and advertised.

 

7. La Quinta Corporations – Never incorporate by yourself. Corporations will not protect you from liability if you do not follow corporate formalities correctly. Protect your intellectual property from the start with the help of a La Quinta corporations attorney. Don’t borrow someone else’s employee handbook or fire problematic employees without legal advice. Don’t get investors without seeing one of our La Quinta corporate attorneys. Cut costs to the bone. Use extra money to advertise, and sell in new markets. A La Quinta corporations lawyer can provide you with advice as to which type of corporation or LLC to use for your business.

 

8. Entertainment Law, Sports Law, Marketing, Advertising, Media and Copyrights in La Quinta – Whether you are a musician, an actor, a model, a writer, an athlete, a broadcaster or connected in any other way to the entertainment industry, contact us or another good La Quinta entertainment attorney as soon as anyone gives you a contract to sign. Signing a bad contract can end your career before it’s ever begun. As soon as you have written any body of work, have it copyrighted. You can do this quite easily yourself, but if you need assistance or if someone else infringes your copyrighted work, you can then file suit against such a party.

 

9. La Quinta Litigation – At the first sign that someone may sue you or your business, consult with a La Quinta litigation attorney. Many times, a lawsuit can be forestalled before it has been filed or the matter resolved with letters between the litigation attorneys. If you are served with a lawsuit, hire a La Quinta litigation lawyer like one from our firm who specializes in mediations and non-binding arbitrations so your litigation can be resolved at the soonest possible opportunity and limit your exposure to years of lawyer’s fees and costs as your case winds slowly through the courts.

 

10. Employment Law in La Quinta – It may seem silly to think you should hire a La Quinta employment attorney whenever you are considering firing an employee, but it has come to that. However, a consultation with a good La Quinta employment law firm can provide you with the advice of how to handle your employee relations both immediately and in the future as you either seek to cut costs or get rid of a problematic employee. If you have been sued or threatened with a suit, or are being scammed by an employee, consult a La Quinta employment lawyer immediately.

 

If you have a legal matter in La Quinta, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Coachella, Rancho Mirage, Indio, Indian Wells, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Thermal, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms or anywhere in the Coachella Valley, our La Quinta law firm has the knowledge and resources to be your La Quinta Lawyers and your La Quinta Attorneys. Be sure to hire a Coachella Valley law firm with experience in Personal Injury, Car Accidents, Drownings, Brain Damage, Catastrophic Injuries, Wrongful Death, Business, Real Estate and Landlord Tenant Law, Homeowner Association Law, Construction, Trademarks, Patents, Corporations, Entertainment, Sports Law, Marketing, Advertising, Media, and Copyright Law, and who will endeavor to ensure that your rights are properly represented.

 

Additionally, if you have a legal matter which involves Environmental and Toxic Tort Law, Litigation, International, Shipping and Maritime Law, Employment, Election and Campaign Finance Law, Consumer Law and Class Actions, Constitutional, Publishing, Publicity, Privacy Rights, Internet Law, Advertising and Media Law, Food and Wine Law, Hotel and Restaurant Law, Estate Planning, Wills and Trusts, Water, Agricultural and Natural Resource Law, Insurance Law, Bad Faith and Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist Defense, Education Law or a Child Accident in La Quinta or anywhere in Southern California, call the Law Offices of R. Sebastian Gibson, or visit our website at http://www.SebastianGibsonLaw.com  and learn how a La Quinta attorney from our offices can assist you.

R. Sebastian Gibson