Today’s News: More Life Insurers Subpoenaed, Young Drivers Have Higher Crash Rates and 1 in 5 Californians Uninsured

The New York State Attorney General has subpoenaed more life insurance companies, a new report shows that young drivers have significantly higher auto accident rates and one in five California residents are go without health insurance.

More Life Insurers Subpoenaed

Recently, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that he would be opening a fraud investigation that looked into how life insurance companies were paying out their benefits. At the time, he had already subpoenaed Prudential Financial and MetLife on suspicion that the companies may had been retaining beneficiary funds in company-controlled accounts instead of paying out lump sums as agreed.

Now, more companies have been subpoenaed for the investigation, including Genworth Financial Inc., Unum Group, Guardian Life Insurance, New York Life Insurance Co. and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance (Wall Street Journal).

Young Drivers Have Higher Crash Rates

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, even though teenagers drive fewer miles on average than almost all other ages, they still account for a much higher number of accidents. In fact, the institute found that teenagers ages 16-19 are four times more likely to crash than drivers 20 and older.

Of course, the increased risk affects auto insurance rates negatively, resulting in parents having to pay more to insure a teen. Some states are even looking to prolong the licensing process to keep teens and the roads safer (PR Newswire).

1 in 5 Californians Uninsured

New statistics from the Census Bureau revealed that one in five Californians (or 20.2 percent) went without health insurance in 2007—that figure equates to 6.5 million.

The communities with the most residents uninsured included rural Mono, Colusa and Monterey counties. The area with the lowest rates of uninsured people included the San Francisco Bay Area counties. The state ranks eighth in the nation for the highest number of uninsured residents. Texas (26.8 percent), New Mexico (26.7 percent) and Florida (24.2 percent) are the highest ranked in the nation (Mercury News).

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