The Supreme Court of California has ruled that a homeowners association cannot sue State Farm over a claim related to the Northridge earthquake while it keeps a previous settlement with the insurer. The unanimous decision means the Village Northridge Homeowners Association will need to give back its previous settlement with State Farm and rescind a release it signed with the insurer in order to sue it for allegedly underpaying and misrepresenting policy limits, according to court documents.

AIR Worldwide has given preliminary estimates that insured losses from Hurricane Earl's passage near the northern Leeward Islands earlier this week are between $50 million and $150 million. AIR said the "estimate includes wind damage to insured onshore properties in the Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, St. Martin and Puerto Rico. Nearly half of the total is attributed to St. Maarten where high winds downed trees and power lines, and peeled off roofs and signage."

Looming Hurricane Earl forced vacationers and some residents off North Carolina's barrier islands Wednesday, churning up dangerous swells and prompting storm alerts along the U.S. east coast. Watches and warnings were posted along the Atlantic coast for most of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and part of Delaware, alerting residents that hurricane conditions were possible in 36 to 48 hours. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue declared a state of emergency Wednesday due to the approach of Hurricane Earl.

Emergency agencies along the Eastern seaboard are preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Earl, which threatens to graze North Carolina and lash coastal Massachusetts with wind and rain before going ashore in Nova Scotia. Evacuations may be needed if the storm doesn't turn north, Craig Fugate, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, said in a conference call Tuesday. While Earl isn't expected to make landfall in the U.S., even a small jog to the west from its current track will have an impact on the mid-Atlantic states, said Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.

Kenneth Feinberg, who last week took over the claims process for BP Plc's Macondo well oil spill, has so far paid nearly $10 million in emergency payouts to Gulf Coast residents who have suffered economic harm, documents show. Feinberg, who promised a speedier and more transparent claims process to frustrated Gulf residents, oversees a $20 billion fund set up by BP in June at the insistence of U.S. President Barack Obama.

The Missouri Labor Department's Division of Workers' Compensation issued over $2.45 million from the Tort Victims' Compensation Fund to 32 Missourians who filed claims in 2009. The Tort Victims' Compensation Fund was created by the General Assembly to help victims who win suits against those who are uninsured or do not have sufficient insurance to cover a claim. "This is an important program that helps compensate those who are injured by the negligence of others and I am pleased we were able to help," says Department Director Larry Rebman. "I hope the payment these folks receive eases their suffering and provides them with the money to be able to pay some of their medical bills and other expenses."

Wind, waves and rain from Hurricane Earl could threaten New York area beaches this Labor Day weekend, sending vacationers home early and prompting some officials to ready evacuation plans in case of storm-related flooding. Trackers project the strengthening storm with 135-mph winds, will steam northward, reaching North Carolina by midweek. The National Hurricane Center predicts a 20% to 30% probability that Hurricane Earl will bring winds with at least the intensity of a tropical storm to Greater New York by late Friday or early Saturday. The much-stronger eye of the storm is projected to stay off the East Coast.

California workers compensation insurers' combined ratios climbed during 2009 to the highest level since 2001, while average claims costs continued increasing, according to a quarterly report on insurer experience released Thursday. The ultimate accident-year 2009 combined ratio is estimated to have reached 124%, the San Francisco-based Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California said in its "Summary of March 31, 2010 Experience." That is 14 percentage points higher than for 2008 and the highest level since 2001, when it declined to 143% from 184% in 1999.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami's latest bulletin, posted at 8:00 AST, notes: "Earl continues to strengthen as it moves across the northern Leeward Islands. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 110 mph, 175 km/hr with higher gusts. Earl is a category two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Additional strengthening is forecast, and earl is expected to become a major hurricane later today."

Many people lost vehicles to rising water during Hurricane Katrina, and an insurance company probably wouldn't have been suspicious of claims that a car had been swept away. But federal investigators say that Sean Hunter, former director of Louis Armstrong International Airport, and his wife, Shauna, used that situation to defraud an insurance company, AAA. Investigators say she falsely claimed that her BMW 525i, purchased weeks before the storm, had been lost.