Insurance

Two Center City corporate accounting offices that admired each other from across the street are moving in together. BDO USA L.L.P. , a Chicago-based corporate accounting and business consulting firm, says it is acquiring Philadelphia accountants Asher & Co. Ltd. and taking on the firm's 10 partners and more than 100 staffers. The move joins Asher, based at 1801 Market, to BDO's 60-employee branch at 1800 Market. "We want to all be under one roof," but haven't yet worked out which home will house the pair, Asher managing director Joseph Beach told me. He'll remain, under BDO; he said no one will lose a job in the deal.

The last time we met, I wrote about a couple in Elkins Park who were dealing with the expensive cleanup of a purported mold problem that began with a routine energy audit. In the homeowners' defense - which they failed to mention in their first e-mail to me - they had obtained other estimates and had done as much homework as civilians can do on problems that often require an impartial expert. As usual, and this is why I treasure my readership, your response to this situation came fast and furious.

Services were to be held this morning for Marie Franchetti, vice president of an insurance brokerage firm and a nationally recognized specialist in aviation insurance, who died Friday. She was 44 and lived in South Philadelphia. Franchetti had worked for Rollins Burdick Hunter, an insurance brokerage service with offices in the Ledger Building, since 1984. Previously, she had worked for Corroon and Black, an insurance agency. "Marie was an aviation insurance specialist," said Gil White, a vice president of Rollins Burdick Hunter and a close friend.

Back in town from two-day owners summit in West Palm Beach, Phillies president and general partner Bill Giles sounded less optimistic about signing Curt Schilling in time for the pitcher's Monday midnight deadline. The problem? "I'm not sure we can get the right insurance," he said, watching the Phillies win their 17th spring training game last night against Toronto at Jack Russell Stadium. Giles would like 100 percent insurance on Schilling's right arm. American Specialty, the insurance company he is dealing with, might be unwilling to do that.

For all President Obama's tough talk about insurance companies Wednesday night, health-economics experts said his overhaul plan held little obvious pain for insurers. Requiring everyone to buy coverage - with government subsidies when necessary - would bring in millions of new customers, lower selling costs, and reduce the hidden tax that all privately insured people pay for those without insurance, experts said. Insurance companies would have to give up some of their most egregious practices - refusing to sell insurance to the people most likely to need it, for example, or dropping customers who get sick - but they would all be in the same boat.

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office has launched a review of Camden County's practices for awarding its insurance business, according to Deputy Attorney General Daniel P. Reynolds. In a letter to Freeholder Michael J. DiPiero, Reynolds said that his office was examining whether the county complied with the state public contracts law when it awarded its no-bid insurance business, worth more than $3.7 million since the start of 1987. DiPiero, a Republican, asked the state Department of Community Affairs last month to examine the county's procedure for giving that insurance business to Democratic Party leaders, including the party treasurer, John Gallagher, and the treasurer of the current freeholder campaign, Peter DiGiambattista.

In the weeks before the Allegheny health system filed for bankruptcy in July, it quadrupled the value - from $50 million to $200 million - of liability insurance policies covering its board of directors and officers. Allegheny's creditors staked claim to that money yesterday - just in case coverage lapses at year's end today. They informed the health system's directors and officers of their intention to pursue the insurance money. The committee representing Allegheny's 65,000 unsecured creditors wrote to board members and executives viewed as most responsible for Allegheny's financial collapse.

Goll-lee! Isn't that health-care debate somethin'? First, the president's plan includes at its very center a requirement that employers pay the cost of health insurance. In a way, this is a conservative position, since most Americans get their health care through their employers. It even makes accounting sense, because there is nowhere that the cost of health insurance isn't a factor in what's eventually in your paycheck. However, much to everyone's surprise, the Republicans went bats over it. Republicans these days go bats over virtually anything that might destroy Bill Clinton's chance to accomplish anything.

The township will begin picking up the tab for its commissioners' health, medical and accident insurance. The Board of Commissioners approved an ordinance Monday night authorizing the commissioners to receive the insurance. Recently adopted state legislation enables township commissioners to receive health coverage similar to that given to township employees, said Robert Breslin, acting solicitor. The commissioners also approved two other ordinances: One restricts parking on Second Street at Erickson Avenue and the second makes Fourth Street one-way in a westerly direction between Printz and Wanamaker Avenues between 6 and 9 a.m. Monday through Friday.

If you can insure yourself, your spouse, your home and your automobile, why not another prized possession: your VCR? Such is the sales pitch many consumers hear when they go out to buy a new appliance. In the Philadelphia area, stores are offering policies resembling insurance for a ever-expanding assortment of products: stereos, videocassette recorders, lawn mowers, washers, computers, bicycles, refrigerators and even tires. Basically, if it can break, someone will try to sell you a policy to get it fixed.

HARRISBURG - Gov. Corbett is expected to sign a bill to prevent coverage of most abortions under policies offered in a federally run insurance marketplace starting next year in Pennsylvania, after the Senate passed it yesterday by a comfortable margin. A spokeswoman for Corbett, an opponent of abortion rights, said he will sign the bill. It passed the Senate, 31-19, and the House approved it in April, 144-53, but only after divisive debates. Critics said the bill expands restrictions on abortion rights and discriminates against poor women.

GULF SHORES, Ala. - When Stan Virden moved into his 2,400-square-foot house overlooking a rock-lined canal in 1996, he paid less than $1,000 a year for homeowners insurance. Now, as he seeks to move to Atlanta to be near family, Virden says potential buyers are being scared off by the annual premium, which has skyrocketed to $5,000. "We feel like we're prisoners here now because the market is so screwed up because of this," the 80-year-old retired Navy captain said. From Cape Cod to the southern tip of Texas, rates for homeowners coverage have risen sharply since 2003, pinching owners financially, forcing them to take greater risk by accepting higher deductibles, and sparking outrage as insurance companies report profits higher in many coastal states than inland.

The revelation this week by the film star Angelina Jolie of a double mastectomy to help avoid breast cancer had business and legal angles as well. Myriad Genetics, the Utah company at the center of a legal debate about the acceptability of gene patenting, has a monopoly on the testing Jolie underwent before opting for surgery. With the news about Jolie breaking Tuesday morning, the company's stock rose to a three-year high of $34.70 during trading on the NASDAQ before closing at $34.10.

TRENTON - Spending on prescription medicines in the United States fell for the first time in decades last year, slipping as cash-strapped consumers continued to cut back on use of health-care services. Patients also benefited from a surge of new, inexpensive generic versions of widely used drugs for chronic conditions such as high cholesterol, according to a new report. Total spending on medications dipped 1 percent, to $325.8 billion last year from $329.2 billion in 2011. Likewise, average spending per person on medicines fell by $33, to $898 last year, according to the report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.

D EAR HARRY: A number of years ago, it was recommended that we attend a seminar given by an insurance company regarding long-term-care insurance. The speaker was convincing. He placed less emphasis on the need than on the low premiums we would have if we got the insurance at a young age. I bought the insurance. Over the years, the premiums increased several times. I understood that this was a result of a declining value of the dollar and the increases in life expectancy. I recently received a notice that my next premium would show an increase of 30 percent.

The biggest changes in health insurance in a generation are set to take effect this year and next. Robert I. Field, a law and public health professor at Drexel University, answers questions about the changes stemming from the health law. Insurance exchanges are coming. What are they? An exchange is a marketplace where you can buy health insurance for you and your family. Most people will access them online, but there will be offices for those who prefer human contact.

As the director of Working Families program at Rutgers University's Center for Women and Work, Karen White has been an unabashed supporter of New Jersey's Family Leave Insurance program in both philosophical and policy-wonkish ways. But it was White's mother who let her understand what the state's policy really meant. "My mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer," White said, "and didn't want to tell any of her children. She was scared that her children would lose their jobs" and their income taking care of her. Five years ago, on May 2, 2008, New Jersey became one of three states to enact legislation providing short-term paid leave for employees bonding with a new child or caring for an ailing parent, spouse, or child.

LITITZ, Pa. - A Central Pennsylvania woman who disappeared after dropping off her children for school 11 years ago has resurfaced in Florida, telling police she traveled there on a whim with homeless hitchhikers, slept under bridges, and survived by scavenging food and panhandling, authorities said Wednesday. Brenda Heist, 54, had been declared legally dead, Lititz Police Detective John Schofield said. The detective said that he met with her in Florida on Monday, and that she expressed shame and apologized for what she had done to her family.

WHEN NAVY PETTY Officer Jeffrey Ferren died of a heart condition last year, his widow, Gabriella Kubinyi, believed she would at least be taken care of financially. That's because as a member of the U.S. armed forces, Ferren, 31, of Camden, had life insurance through Prudential Insurance Co. But Kubinyi's grief at losing her husband in April 2012 was only compounded when the Newark, N.J., insurance giant told her that she would not be receiving his full $400,000 death benefit. The insurer said a clerical error had resulted in the wrong amount being deducted from her husband's paychecks, therefore she would not get the full benefit amount, according to attorney Aaron J. Freiwald, who yesterday filed a lawsuit against Prudential in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

WHEN ED WHITE'S family would drive past Northeast Catholic High School for Boys on Torresdale Avenue, they could easily envision a halo around the building. The image came to mind because of the near-holy reverence Ed had for his alma mater. What was it about that school that Ed White held in such deference? A quiet man of few words, Ed might have had trouble putting his feelings into words, but his family attributed it to the gratitude he had for the education he received there, and his deep respect for the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales who run it. Whatever it was, Ed continued to serve the school long after he graduated in 1955.