On November 7, the Kincade Fire—so far the largest, most destructive fire of the 2019 California wildfire season—was fully contained and extinguished after scorching 120 square miles of Sonoma wine country in two weeks. The more than 400 structures destroyed in the Kincade Fire represent over half of all property losses due to wildfires in…
A 16-unit apartment building was decimated and all 50 of its residents displaced after two fires broke out within 30 hours of each other at the Spring Hill Apartments complex in Goose Creek, South Carolina. While no one was injured in the early October blazes, which officials said appeared to be unrelated to one another,…
As the holiday season begins in earnest, we anticipate gatherings of family and friends filled with love, laughter and plenty of food and drink. When hosting such gatherings, make sure that your plans include safeguarding your home and guests against some of the season’s most common mishaps. While you cannot foresee or prevent every scenario,…
Fisher Investments, an active equity manager based in Washington, is facing backlash after its founder and executive chairman Ken Fisher reportedly made inappropriate sexist comments during a conference presentation on October 8. Weeks later, clients had pulled over $3 billion in assets from Fisher Investments. To date, 20 institutions have pulled almost $3.9 billion from…
Blaise D’Antoni promoted to Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Burns & Wilcox DETROIT (November 5, 2019) – H.W. Kaufman Group, a global network of companies, and Kaufman’s subsidiary Burns & Wilcox, North America’s leading wholesale insurance broker and underwriting manager, today publicly announced leadership promotions that were revealed during its annual Kaufman Leadership Meeting. Each…
Halloween spending is expected to reach $8.8 billion in the U.S. this year, with Americans paying an average of $86 each for costumes, candy, decor and other products to celebrate the season. While parents invest heavily in the holiday — the best holiday of the year, say 44 percent of Canadians — it is the…
Adds former Flagstar Senior Vice President and CIO to executive team DETROIT (October 29, 2019)—H.W. Kaufman Group, a global network of companies dedicated to shaping the future of insurance, announced today the addition of Richard S. Fusinski to its executive team. Fusinski joins Kaufman as Chief Information Officer and will be based at the company…
On October 1, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about the so-called URGENT/11 cybersecurity flaws that leave certain Wi-Fi-enabled medical devices vulnerable to being remote-controlled by hackers, such as cardiac pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) or insulin pumps. The FDA indicated that devices potentially at risk are those utilizing IPnet, a decades-old software…
In his newly-released book, Catch and Kill, former NBC reporter Ronan Farrow recounts previously-unreleased details surrounding rape accusations against Matt Lauer, the former host of NBC’s “Today” show. Farrow provides a revealing, comprehensive account of accusations made by Brooke Nevils, a former NBC employee who maintained that Lauer sexually assaulted her in 2014. Lauer has…
When a storage freezer at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) malfunctioned last month, 56 pediatric patients, many undergoing cancer treatment, lost their stem cells. The cells were collected before patients began cancer treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, and stored for potential future use. Following the incident, CHLA sent notification letters to the affected families, unfortunately…
October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM), a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) to disseminate cybersecurity facts, best practices, and promote free resources to make organizations and individuals safer and more secure. Recent cybersecurity threat data is staggering. Symantec’s…
At 2 a.m. on September 8, the U.S. Coast Guard stationed near St. Simons, Georgia, was alerted that the Golden Ray, a South Korean cargo vessel carrying over 4,000 new automobiles, had begun dangerously inclining to one side, shortly after departing the Port of Brunswick. By late morning response teams had rescued 20 of the…
Dr. Joseph DeCorso entered a guilty plea in New Jersey federal court on September 12, on charges he allegedly conspired to commit $13 million in Medicare fraud by prescribing medically unnecessary orthotic braces while working for two telemedicine firms between July 2017 and March 2019. He also agreed to pay $7 million in restitution to…
On August 30, Restoration Hardware issued a product safety recall for about 5,700 cotton Turkish bathrobes following reports that the robes had ignited when being worn during gas stove use. Made in Turkey, the bathrobes sold from August 2018 to March in the both the U.S. and Canada. That same day Restoration Hardware also recalled…
Late on September 2 a 117-acre mountainside wildfire, dubbed Snoqualmie Fire, ignited less than a mile from a residential neighborhood in Layton, Utah, prompting mandatory evacuations of 125 homes. The fire, which reportedly came within 100 to 200 yards of homes, began just one day after officials announced 100 percent containment of the Gun Range…
On August 16, a coordinated ransomware attack was launched on 22 city, county and police department offices in Texas, seizing and disabling systems and encrypting data. The collective ransom demanded by what state authorities have described as a “single threat actor” is $2.5 million. While larger municipalities, like Lubbock County, were able to quickly identify…
On August 19, CannTrust Holdings Inc. announced that the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) was returning its entire $2.2 million inventory of CannTrust products. The return is in response to the suspension of CannTrust’s sales and shipments last month, after a Health Canada inspection revealed the company had grown plants in several unlicensed greenhouses. Prior to…
On August 1, TechCrunch reported that online retailer StockX did not reveal that it had suffered a data breach in May that exposed 6.8 million user records. Within days of discovering the breach, StockX emailed users and instructed them to change their passwords following what the company referred to as system updates on its platform,…
Company celebrates 50th anniversary with corporate-wide effort Farmington Hills, Mich. (August 12, 2019) – H.W. Kaufman Group, a global network of companies dedicated to shaping the future of insurance, announced today the launch of its 50 Days of Giving Challenge, a global and corporate-wide effort in honor of the company’s 50th anniversary. The challenge includes the…
On July 2, lightning struck and ignited a fire at two Jim Beam distillery warehouses in Versailles, Kentucky. The fire, fueled by the 45,000 barrels—over 2 million gallons—of bourbon, burned for several days and reduced one warehouse and its contents to rubble. Bourbon from barrels destroyed in the fire flowed from the site into nearby…
