Insurers are bracing for a hit of up to $57 billion as they try to assess the damage from Hurricane Ian in Florida and South Carolina, risk modeling firm Verisk said on Monday.

New South Carolina grand jury indictments have been filed against controversial insurance fraud attorney Alex Murdaugh and his alleged accomplice Curtis Eddie Smith. Murdaugh, 54, is currently in jail on a $7 million bond following more than 70 criminal charges including embezzlement, breach of trust, fraudulent intent, money laundering, computer crimes, and forgery.

Severe storms from Texas to the Carolinas damaged homes and left thousands without power throughout the afternoon and evening hours on Monday.

A lawsuit by the insurance company that paid off an allegedly bogus $3.8 million claim by lawyer Alex Murdaugh after the death of his housekeeper cites Murdaugh’s ‘depravity’ and alleges new details of an alleged scheme he cooked up with another lawyer and a banker.

The soul of this Florida Panhandle city lives in the Tanyard, a 200-year-old neighborhood so steeped in history that locals give it an extra capital ‘T’ -- as in ‘The Tanyard.’ It has also seen big-T troubles: Jim Crow-era segregation, heavy industrialization, multiple hurricane batterings, and a half-century of disinvestment and blight.

The owner of a bar in the popular ‘Barmuda Triangle’ on Hilton Head Island says he was forced to shut down because of lawsuits stemming from the devastating Hilton Head bridge crash that killed three people in May.

In its recently released annual report, the ATRA identified 8 jurisdictions on its 2021 hellholes list – which, in order, include: (1) California (with the plaintiffs’ bar taking advantage of unique California laws like the Private Attorney General Act); (2) New York City (particularly regarding Americans With Disabilities Act accessibility claims and an activist attorney general battling climate change with energy companies), (3) Georgia....

A federal judge last week ruled that a Pennsylvania-based insurance company is not on the hook for any potential liabilities generated by suspended South Carolina attorney Richard Alexander ‘Alex’ Murdaugh or his son Richard Alexander ‘Buster’ Murdaugh, Jr. in connection with the death of a teen in a 2019 boating accident.

Tropical Storm Fred weakened to a depression and spawned several apparent tornadoes in Georgia on Tuesday as it dumped heavy rains into the Appalachian mountains along a path that could cause flash floods as far north as upstate New York.

The South Carolina Department of Insurance (SCDOI) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) to transfer insurance fraud enforcement to the SCDOI.

Port Royal bore the brunt of the area’s damage from Tropical Storm Elsa earlier this month when a tornado hit downtown. But the storm also spawned a large wave that crashed into an isolated area of the town’s waterfront, cracking more than 30 wooden pilings at the former state-owned terminal building.

Tropical Storm Elsa is making landfall along northern Florida’s Gulf Coast, in Taylor County, the National Hurricane Center said.

Tropical Storm Danny formed Monday afternoon off South Carolina’s coast, and forecasters said the storm is expected to race inland over the U.S. Southeast while dumping several inches of rain in some spots.

Insurance giant UnitedHealthcare is cracking down on unnecessary emergency room visits with a new policy starting July 1 that the American Hospital Association says will jeopardize patients’ health and threaten them with financial penalties.

Toyota expanded a worldwide fuel pump recall to a total of 5.84 million vehicles for a defect that could cause the part to fail. In the United States, the total number of vehicles involved in this safety recall is now approximately 3.34 million vehicles.