The

INSURANCE RECORD THE VOICE OF TEXAS INSURANCE Published Since 1934 • Dallas, Texas December 4, 2008 • Vol. 74 No. 25

If Not for the Honor of the Thing —

2008 earns hurricane Distinction

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—The 2008 Hurricane Season, which ended Nov. 30, will go into the history books as the fourth most costly on record, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI).

Busy Season

As predicted, there was another above average storm season with 16 named storms to date. There were eight hurricanes: two Category 1 (Hanna, Kyle), one Category 2 (Dolly), two Category 3 (Bertha, Omar), and three Category 4 (Gustav, Ike, Paloma). Combined, these storms produced insured losses estimated at more than $11 billion.

The last hurricane of the season, Paloma, hit Cuba Nov. 9 and made 2008 the only season where major hurricanes

have formed in five separate months. This year also has the distinction of being the first season where three Atlantic tropical storms in July (Bertha, Cristobal, and Dolly) were active on the same day. Texas had the misfortune of experiencing two significant storms this year, Hurricanes Ike and Dolly. After devastating Texas, Hurricane Ike also had broad reaching impact causing damage across nine states, including Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Inundated by Ike

“Hurricane Ike was the most powerful storm to make U.S. landfall since Katrina tested the nation’s disaster response system in 2005,” said Joe Woods, assistant vice president and regional manager for the southwest at PCI. “Ike was Texas’

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President Bush Pardons
Texas Medical Defrauder

In This Issue

October: Jack-o-Lanterns, License Revocations, and Other Scary Stuff 3

WASHINGTON and FORT WORTH—The name Brenda Jean Dolenz-Helmer of Fort Worth showed up on the list of people pardoned by President George W. Bush in his waning days in office. She had been convicted of a federal crime — Misprision of Felony ( 18 U.S.C. § 4) — on Dec. 31, 1998, and sentenced to four years’ probation, with special condition of 600 hours of community service and a $10,000 fine. Dolenz-Helmer, a medical missionary, reportedly feared that being a convicted felon would hinder her foreign dental missionary work.

Regulators Commend Legislators’

SeC Rule 151A Fight 5

Special Focus:

Excess and Surplus Lines 6

Rainey elected to Lead TSLA 6 ASLI Is In Its Teens 8 Best: S/L Does Better than P/C 10 The Few, The Proud, The Interns 11

Misprision of Felony is defined as a person or persons, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the U.S., conceals continued on page 3