Insurance Industry: How the Internet of Things is transforming the insurance industry - by John Greenough

The ability to bring internet connection to nearly every type of consumer device will have huge implications for the insurance industry over the next five years. Insurers looking to cut costs, improve business practices, and better assess clients' risk levels, will increasingly invest in the Internet of Things (IoT). 

Some auto and health insurers are already offering a new type of insurance — usage-based insurance (UBI) that uses IoT devices to track clients' activity and offer discounts or rewards for healthy and safe behavior. We expect 17 million people will have tried UBI auto insurance by the end of this year.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we examine the impact of the IoT on the insurance industry. From free fitness trackers to track individuals' exercise habits to drones to assess damages in unsafe post-disaster conditions, we analyze current US insurance markets — including the auto, health, life, and property insurance markets — and look at ways insurers are integrating IoT devices.

Read more: How the Internet of Things is transforming the insurance industry - Business Insider

Greece: With Greek ‘No’ Vote, Tsipras Wins a Victory That Could Carry a Steep Price - by Liz Alderman

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras may have won a victory at home on Sunday as the Greek people dealt a resounding “no” to European austerity policies.

But Greece risks paying a high price for that decision. While the vote sharply consolidated Mr. Tsipras’s popularity, that could fade quickly if he leads the country deeper into bankruptcy and financial chaos, creating a new round of instability with consequences for Greece and the broader European project.

If anything, Mr. Tsipras is likely to find it harder, rather than easier, to strike a new financing deal quickly with European creditors, heightening the risk that Greece will careen out of the eurozone unless Europe decides to give Mr. Tsipras and his defiant nation another chance.

“What we need now is more wisdom from both sides,” said Loukas Tsoukalis, the president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, an Athens-based think tank. “Greece can’t go on because we’re on the edge of cliff,” he said. “After all this, the question is whether our partners would be so unwise as to push Greece over the edge, because that would be damaging for everyone.”

Some European officials acknowledged Sunday that greater flexibility might now be needed from their camp. Just as the referendum vote divided Greece, so, too, did it reveal fault lines between those European countries that appear willing to bend to keep Greece in the eurozone, and others, including Germany and the Netherlands, whose policy makers have all but suggested that the eurozone would be better off without Greece.

Read more: With Greek ‘No’ Vote, Tsipras Wins a Victory That Could Carry a Steep Price - The New York Times

Personal Privacy: T-Mobile was asked to turn over more customer info to NSA than its larger rivals - by Roger Cheng

T-Mobile received nearly 351,940 government requests for data in 2014, the most out of any of the four national wireless carriers.

The nation's fourth-largest carrier by subscriber base disclosed in its transparency report on Wednesday that it had fielded 177,549 criminal and civil subpeonas, 17,316 warrants and more than 3,000 wiretap orders.

It marked the first time T-Mobile issued a transparency report, which have become increasingly popular over the past year as civil liberties groups, shareholder and consumer advocates have pressured companies to be more open about when they disclose customer information. T-Mobile was the last of the four national carriers to issue a report, which comes amid continued scrutiny of surveillance programs run by the US National Security Agency -- including the bulk collection of phone call data -- that were revealed when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified government documents.

The requests kept T-Mobile busy last year -- the number of requests jumped nearly 11 percent from 2013.
 
Read more: T-Mobile was asked to turn over more customer info than its larger rivals - CNET

USA: Wall Street banker pens sex and drugs tell-all book - by Sherryl Connelly

Blue-chip banker John LeFevre, after spilling Wall Street’s secrets 140 characters at a time, is back with a whole book about his cocaine-fueled days as a master of the universe.
“Straight to Hell” is shocking and sordid — and so much fun.

LeFevre was still working on Wall Street when he tweeted snippets of outrageous conversations supposedly overheard in the elevator at Goldman Sachs.

He’s given up the Twitter pseudonym @GS Elevator to spin the rest of his riveting tale in a tell-all that rivals “The Wolf of Wall Street” for dishing the insider dirt.

LeFevre bluntly sums up his approach: “No apologies, no f---s given.”

When LeFevre was transferred to Hong Kong in 2004, he soon discovered it was fantasy island for lions of Wall Street looking to shed their expensive suits and get nasty.

The hedge fund manager responsible for introducing him to powerful clients first handed him a phone number, advising LeFevre it was a priority: “It’s Joe’s cell number. You’re going to need it.”

“It’s not that bankers in New York or London are less deviant, they just can’t get away with what we can,” he writes of the no-holds barred events.

Read more: Wall Street banker pens sex and drugs tell-all book - NY Daily News

The Netherlands: A Look At The World’s High-Tech Startup Capital - by Conrad Egusa and Steven Cohen

Behind London and Berlin, the Dutch startup scene is already considered to be one of the most prominent in Europe. (If it feels unfair to weigh an entire country against individual cities, consider that the Netherlands has 17 million people crammed into an area half the size of South Carolina.

Startup Juncture reported 75 major deals in 2014, for a total of roughly $560 million in investment. Ten companies raised over $9 million. In the past few years, especially, each successive quarter has seemingly brought a new standard for sheer volume of activity. The road to this point has been long and deliberate, and Dutch entrepreneurs deserve credit for what they’ve managed to achieve thus far.

And yet, to herald Dutch innovation as it currently stands is to unveil a project that’s still only just underway.

The Dutch, on the whole, speak better English than probably any non-native population in continental Europe, one of the hallmarks of a consistently excellent education system that also scores among the highest worldwide in math and science metrics. Strong economic foundations in industry and commerce offer a dependable framework for continued growth.

And under the proven leadership of Neelie Kroes, the so-called “Internet-Tsar” of Europe, the government’s recent commitments to tech entrepreneurship may mark a bellwether of a new era in startup proliferation.

Read more: The Netherlands: A Look At The World’s High-Tech Startup Capital | TechCrunch

Greece says NO to austerity demands by Wall Street dominated financial sector and their IMF brainchild

The Greek No Vote has shown the rest of the EU that democracy is what counts and not the dictatorial rule of the Wall Street dominated global financial markets and its brainchild the IMF.

It will hopefully only hasten Europe's need to take a more independent route on a variety of issues, presently controlled by Trans-Atlantic financial and political forces.

Europe must choose for Greece, after all, aren't they one of us?
EU-Digest

Insurance Industry: "SURE" takes close look at readjustments and consolidations taking place in the European insurance industry

The Summer issue of SURE published by Koster Insurances takes a special look at the readjustments and consolidations taking place in the European insurance industry .

Also in this issue additional information on the upheaval in the European Insurance industry which comes not only as a result of new EU regulations affecting the Insurance market, but also as a direct consequence of changing economic times, circumstances and influences. Among these outside influences, probably one of the most important being the low interest rates.

SURE notes that For multinational companies, including those in the insurance industry, another dark cloud on the horizon seems to be that there is a general consensus among governments around the world, including the EU, that something has to be done about the tax evasion practices by many multinational corporations. To combat this problem the EU is presently developing a common EU tax base.

This issue of SURE also reviews the EU's sustainable energy strategy and how it can positively influence the job market, and looks specifically at market developments in Britain, Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands concerning the insurance industry.

Koster Insurances, the publisher of the publication also announced in this issue that this would be the last issue of SURE in its present format. The publication was first published in 2006. 

EU-Digest