From "news re:insurance network":

Kmart, ITT Industries Join List of Companies Suing to Recover Y2K Remediation Costs, Mealey's Reports,

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., Jan 14, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Kmart Corp. (NYSE: KM) and ITT Industries (NYSE: IIN) each filed declaratory judgment actions on Dec. 30 contending that property policies dating to 1996 should cover millions of dollars spent remediating potential Year 2000 computer problems in internal systems. Mealey Publication's Year 2000 Report informed subscribers today in a bulletin. Kmart filed its suit in Wayne County, Mich., against Lexington Insurance Company, which wrote primary policies from August 1997 through August 2000, according to Kmart, and excess insurers who provided another $47.5 million per occurrence during those years: Allianz Insurance Co.; American Empire Surplus Lines Insurance Co.; Clarendon National Insurance Co.; Commonwealth Insurance Co.; Essex Insurance Co.; First Specialty Insurance Corp.; GAN National Insurance Co.; General Star Indemnity Co.; Investors Insurance Company of America; Mt. Hawley Insurance Co.; Reliance Insurance Company of Illinois; The Travelers Indemnity Company of Illinois; and Zurich American Insurance Co. Kmart has estimated its costs at $80 million. ITT Industries, which said it spent $19.5 million, filed the same day in state courts in Indiana and New York. The New York action named Factory Mutual Insurance Co., successor to Allendale Mutual Insurance Co.; American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Co.; Industrial Risk Insurers, and Gail Norstrom and/or "John Doe" as president and/or treasurer of Industrial Risk Insurers. The Indiana action named Factory Mutual, again as successor to Allendale Mutual; Allianz Insurance Co.; AIU Insurance Co.; Zurich American Insurance Co.; Royal Insurance Company of America; and Continental Casualty Co.

Link to story:

http://www.newsre.com/index.asp?layout=story&doc_id=4075

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 18, 2000

Answers

Friends, this doesn't look like a lot of story but it is one of the LARGEST stories bubbling under in Y2K issues today (and for the porseeable future, until something big breaks). This is an attempt to get you and me to pay for EACH company's remediation effort.

HOW you may ask? By making the insurance companies liable, everyone's insurance rates will skyrocket, OR the insurance companies will fold. If the liability gets litigated and is laid on the insurance companies (a short-sighted and wrong headed decision in MY opinion), they will have to recover the payments in premiums OR divest themselves of their sorta valuable real estate holdings. Either way we suffer. Skyrocketing premiums, or a sudden crash in ALL real estate values (they are all interconnected in terms of value).

THIMK! This is NOT being played out in a vaccuum [sic].

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 18, 2000.

Boy, this gets under my skin.

How stupid can some companies be? If I were an insurance company faced with one of these actions, I would be asking some serious questions, along the lines of.....

If you want me to pay for your year 2000 repair bill, then I will need to run your company for you. Why should I, the insurance company, have to pay for your management mistakes? Your company MADE the decision to develop and/or purchase software that wasn't complaint. Why should I have to pay to fix YOUR problem....

Sorry, rant off. But in the real end, it is every single one of us that will pay, one way or another.

-- (Sheeple@Greener.Pastures), January 18, 2000.

THE "SUE AND LABOR" LAWSUITS

-- For background (information@purposes.only), January 18, 2000.

WHOOOPPIE!!!

Maybe now those brilliant over paid, underworked IT's that Ed Yourdon always talks about will have to pay for their mistakes. They always came in over budget and late, so where is their accountability? They were made to get insurance, their insurance should pay.

If Microsoft "didn't have any Y2K problems" as late as 1998, then where is the problem here?

Maybe the colleges that taught those "recient IT graduates" were not teaching them what they should have. Instead of teaching them enough programming, they took the old "management" classes and taught them to the IT's. Taught them how to prolong their jobs and squeeze as much out of their employer as they could. Now it is all coming back to haunt them.

neener neener neener

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 18, 2000.

Insurance Cos. Target for Y2K Suits

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001zkU

-- (in@the.news), January 18, 2000.

i don't think alot of the blame lies at the feet of the programmers. i think behind many IT projects there is a clueless corporate manager (who is not IT but who controls purse strings) that wants as much as possible for as little as possible or with no real functional/technical understanding of what the system needs to do. you get what you pay for. you have to ensure quality in order to get good results.

i wonder how this affects the legislation that was to protect corporations from irate users? well now we have the irate corporations suing insurance companies!! i think that is reprehensible.

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), January 18, 2000.

Looks like a lot of lawyers attempting to fill a void (absence of Y2k glitches)

-- Michael (m@m.m), January 18, 2000.