Marsh in talks to acquire Bluefin brokerage from AXA
It’s reported that Marsh is in advanced talks with AXA regarding the French-based global insurer’s UK brokerage business.
Bluefin has around 1400 employees in 40 offices and is one of the UK’s largest brokerage networks. British broadcaster Sky News says that an insider has told it that the deal could be completed within weeks.
AXA sold part of the Bluefin operation three years ago and has also sold other parts of its UK business to Standard Life and Phoenix Group recently as global CEO Thomas Buberl implements a refocussing of the insurer’s global operations.
Children without insurance more likely to face hospital transfers
Children admitted to emergency rooms are more likely to be transferred to another hospital for inpatient treatment if they are uninsured or covered by Medicaid.
That’s the finding of a new study which will be presented Monday (Oct. 24) to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2016 National Conference & Exhibition in San Francisco.
"Our findings suggest a systematic bias toward admitting children with private medical insurance and transferring those who either don't have insurance or who have Medicaid," said abstract author Yunru Huang, a Ph.D. candidate in epidemiology at University of California, Davis.
Huang is calling for efforts to be made to reduce the number of children without insurance and for equity in payments by Medicaid and private insurers.
"Not having health insurance or having Medicaid coverage unfortunately is still an important factor in the type and quality of care delivered to children," Huang said.
Academic calls for new approach to cybersecurity
Following Friday’s massive ‘denial of service’ attack on sites including Amazon, Twitter and Netflix, an Illinois expert is calling for a change of thinking.
“What is needed is a different approach, one that acknowledges that you'll never have a system that is 100 per cent secure, but that you can take steps to render what the hackers do find completely useless to them,” said Dr Ray Klump, professor and director of the Master of Information Security program at Lewis University.
Dr Klump says that while keeping hackers out completely may be “like trying to keep water out with a screen”, using strong encryption of data means that if data is stolen, it can’t be read and is therefore of no value.
