Insurance Financial News

All standard homeowner and tenant insurance policies cover damage caused by wildfires, and also provide coverage to help with the cost of mass evacuations, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC).

Bitcoin life insurance innovator Meanwhile Group, backed by notable figures like Sam Altman and Gradient Ventures, has unveiled a new private credit fund denominated in Bitcoin. 

As the final preparations for the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried were underway in Manhattan, attorneys for the embattled former FTX CEO were filing a suit against the Continental Casualty insurance company in the United States District Court of Northern California. That company has allegedly provided Paper Bird and its subsidiary FTX Trading directors and officers (D&O) insurance. The suit was filed by Bankman-Fried as an individual.

CNA Financial, the seventh-largest commercial insurer in the United States, has excluded nonfungible tokens (NFTs) coverage from Schwab Strategic Trust’s policy worth $20 million.

Residents don’t know what they’ll find when they return home after evacuation due to wildfires or other natural disasters. They don’t even know if their homes will still exist.

The vast potential of decentralized finance (DeFi) is frequently overshadowed by the risks associated with crypto markets and decentralized platforms. The lack of reliable insurance policies leads to users becoming susceptible to losing funds in the event of hacks or exploits, which is happening more often as the DeFi ecosystem grows.

US-based startup Arbol has revealed a parametric insurance platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, developed in collaboration with The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative.

Evertas, an insurance company focused on digital assets, recently announced an increase in coverage limits and the addition of mining operations to its coverage portfolio.

Crypto insurance providers spend enormous amounts of time judging whether to provide coverage to a crypto company, and almost none of them offer assurances to individuals, insurance and crypto executives told Cointelegraph.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been growing at an unprecedented rate in recent years and is being integrated into a range of industries. But its rapid growth has sparked concern over job losses, as many tasks previously performed by humans could soon be automated by AI.

Sam Bankman Fried’s new petition to have his legal expenses reimbursed has been met with fierce objection from lawyers representing the crypto exchange and its creditors committee.

Martin Gruenberg, chair of the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has said the FDIC plans to return roughly $4 billion in deposits connected to Signature Bank’s digital asset banking business by early April.

A recent college graduate and a single mom are dabbling hopefully in bitcoin after attending a crypto workshop sponsored by rapper Jay-Z at the public housing complex where the hip-hop star grew up. But a former executive at a cryptocurrency exchange feels disillusioned by the false promise of crypto helping her family in Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region. All were drawn by the idea of crypto as a pathway to wealth-building outside of traditional financial systems with a long history of racial discrimination and indifference to the needs of low-income communities. But crypto's meltdown over the past year has dealt a blow to that narrative, fueling a debate between those who continue to believe in its future and skeptics who say misleading advertising and celebrity-fueled hype have drawn vulnerable people to a risky and unproven asset class.

According to a Mar. 21 report published by decentralized finance analytics firm OpenCover, DeFi insurance companies paid out $34.4 million in claims in 2022. In context, only $36.9 million of such claims have been paid out since OpenCover began tracking the data. Notable payouts include $22.5 million during the collapse of the Terra Luna ecosystem in May 2022 and $4.7 million from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November 2022. 

U.S. officials are reportedly studying ways to expand the current scope of deposit insurance that would guarantee all U.S. bank deposits should the current banking crisis worsen.

The Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America (MBCA) has reportedly asked United States federal regulators to extend insurance on all deposits for the next two years.

The United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has sent a letter to executives of cryptocurrency exchange CEX.IO warning them that they are potentially in violation of federal law due to false and misleading statements about the exchange’s insurance status. The agency has given the exchange 15 days to make corrections.

Digital asset custody platform GK8 has partnered with USI Insurance Services to expand its insurance policy for institutional customers — a move the company said would incentivize banks and other financial institutions to start investing in cryptocurrency. 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation acting chair Martin Gruenberg said the agency does not back any crypto firms in the United States, nor does its insurance cover losses from tokens.

United States President Joe Biden announced he would be nominating Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, acting chair Martin Gruenberg to assume the position as part of a five-year term.

A new insurance world is coming where smart contracts replace insurance documents, blockchain “oracles” supplant claim adjusters, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) take over traditional insurance carriers. Millions of poor farmers in Africa and Asia will be eligible for coverages like crop insurance too, whereas before, they were too poor and too dispersed to justify the cost of underwriting.