The city of San Francisco is challenging state legislation that allows insurance companies to charge women more than men for health coverage.

In a practice known as gender rating, women in California pay up to 39 percent more than men for coverage in the individual insurance market, which is where people who aren’t covered by employer plans or state health programs get their insurance. Nationwide, about 7 percent of women buy their health coverage directly from insurance companies.

Gender rating is illegal in 10 states and restricted in two more, but in California, state legislation allows insurance companies to set different rates, on the basis that women are more expensive to care for than men, even without including maternity care. At least until age 55, women tend to visit their doctors for annual screenings and checkups more often than men and are more likely to suffer from certain chronic diseases.

But critics call the system unfair.

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With mortgage rates at their lowest level in nearly four decades, Charlottesville-area mortgage companies are reporting a sharp spike in interest among homeowners wanting to refinance.

“A lot of us haven’t seen rates like this in our lifetime,” said Jason Crigler of Crown Mortgage Services LLC. “There’s been a lot of interest.”

The national average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is hovering around 5 percent, the lowest rate since mortgage giant Freddie Mac started keeping track of weekly rates 37 years ago.

For qualifying homeowners, refinancing can save a significant sum of money. If a homeowner with a $200,000 mortgage loan with 6.5 percent interest refinances to 5 percent, for example, the homeowner could save an estimated $130 to $150 per month and a total $30,000 to $50,000 over the life of the loan, said Crigler, who is the incoming president of the Central Virginia Association of Mortgage Professionals.

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A legal center has filed suit against a Missouri commission because it believes a new insurance rule will discourage people from trying to produce their own solar or wind power.

The Great Rivers Environmental Law Center filed suit against the Missouri Public Service Commission in Cole County Circuit Court.

It says a PSC decision that people must carry certain levels of liability insurance if they want to produce power and feed it back to an electric utility is illegal.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Renew Missouri, a citizens’ group that worked to get a law passed last year allowing those who generate alternative energy a way to feed it back to their power utility.

An attorney for PSC, Kevin Thompson, said the agency acted within its authority when it set the insurance requirement.

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The biggest property developers in the United States are asking to be included in the federal government’s efforts to jump-start commercial lending, said Jeff DeBoer, president of the Washington-based Real Estate Roundtable.

The help could come through a new $200 billion loan program established to aid the market for car loans, student loans, and credit-card debt, or through a separate pool that would allow property owners to refinance mortgages, DeBoer said. The group represents property owners, developers, lenders, and management companies.

About $270 billion of mortgages on shopping malls, apartment complexes, and office buildings must be refinanced in 2009, according to Barclays estimates. Commercial loan defaults will accelerate as banks and insurance companies rein in lending to manage their balance sheets and as the market for commercial mortgage-backed securities stays shut, Fitch Ratings said in a Nov. 17 report.

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Key players in the debate over how to provide healthcare coverage for the nation’s 47 million uninsured say they view Massachusetts’ landmark 2006 law as an important model for what Washington could do and how to get it done.

Massachusetts achieved near-universal coverage by investing heavily in patching the holes in the existing system, where most people get coverage through work – something economist Jonathan Gruber of MIT calls “incremental universalism.” This centrist approach rejects both the liberal vision of a Canadian-style Medicare-for-all system and the conservative preference to move to a deregulated market where people buy policies on their own with the help of tax credits.

“The architecture of the Massachusetts plan is very similar to the architecture of what everyone is talking about, which is essentially building on the existing system and not throwing it out,” said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy group based in Menlo Park, Cal.

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The Federal Reserve’s promise to expand a massive mortgage debt buying program pushed U.S. home loan rates to at least 5-year lows on Wednesday, putting them on track to hit the lowest levels in four decades.

Average 30-year fixed mortgage rates sank by about 1/4 percentage point to around 5 percent, but could end the week even lower and provide a much needed boost not only to consumer pocket books, but the economy.

The Fed said on Tuesday it might pump up a program to buy up to $500 billion of mortgage bonds issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae to free lenders to make new and lower-rate loans, and stimulate the worst housing market since the Great Depression.

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Mortgage rates dropped Tuesday for the first time in years. The drop is meant to help America out of a recession and boost the slumping housing market.

Mortgage rates are as low as 4.5 percent in south eastern Idaho. The housing market has been in a slump here locally, and that’s why this rate cut couldn’t come at a better time and season.

It’s harder to show houses in the winter time,” says Jim Windmiller of Windstar Realty. “People can’t see the landscaping and the roof so it’s a little slower through the winter months. So when the snow starts to melt in the spring we see a little more activity. But with the interest rate as low as they are people might start looking and knocking on doors now.

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Company says smoke that killed 3 was ‘pollution’ 

An insurance company with a potential $25 million liability from a 2007 Houston office fire is claiming smoke that killed three people was “pollution” and surviving families shouldn’t be compensated for their losses since the deaths were not caused directly by the actual flames.

Great American Insurance Company is arguing in a Houston federal court that the section of the insurance policy that excludes payments for pollution – like discharges or seepage that require cleanup – would also exclude payouts for damages, including deaths, caused by smoke, or pollution, that results from a fire.

“This is shocking. It’s an extraordinary effort by an insurance company to avoid paying on a contract for insurance,” said Randy Sorrels, who represents several family members in wrongful death lawsuits from the fire in a six-story atrium building on the North Loop.

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Potential home buyers sitting on the fence may now have a pretty good reason to take the plunge. Interest rates are now at historic lows.

Jeff Nelson has been watching interest rates fall for weeks now. He and his wife Rachel decided to refinance their Tucker home because rates have fallen to historic lows.

“[We're] going from a 6.375 to a 4.875 [which means savings every month of] about $170,” said Jeff Nelson.

The Nelsons aren’t alone.

At America’s Discount Home Loans in Norcross, loan officers have been busy taking applications. Their boss shaved his head because he promised to do so if loan applications topped what they were last month.

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A new Iowa statute that will take effect Jan. 1 will protect Iowans who are denied long-term care insurance benefits. If successful, it could be used as a model for other states, according to industry experts.

If an insurance company rejects a claim by an elderly,disabled person for long-term care insurance, that person can pay $25 to have an independent medical expert review the case, according to the statute. If that expert makes a decision in favor of the consumer, that decision is final, according to the new rules. Currently in Iowa, the only recourse for those who’ve had their long-term care insurance claims rejected is a lengthy lawsuit, according to The Des Moines Register.

Some state lawmakers are skeptical about the new measure, noting that insurance companies will pay the majority of medical examiners’ bills. This, they say, raises questions as to how independent those examiners can truly be. But most in the state Legislature are adopting a wait-and-see policy.

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