Business in brief: Group Health to drop North Idaho groups
Group Health will discontinue insurance coverage for small groups in North Idaho, effective Jan. 1, which will affect about 450 people from Coeur d’Alene to Moscow.
The Seattle-based nonprofit health insurance provider said it is unable to be competitive insuring groups of 50 or fewer people in North Idaho. Coverage for larger groups will continue without change.
Bob Burden, the administrator for Group Health, said it’s a decision the company agonized over.
“One of the rationales of insurance is to spread risk across a large number of people,” he said. “Unfortunately, because of the fact that we only operate in fairly rural areas, our small group or small business pool is only about 450 people, and it’s just not been viable.”
The company said it hopes to re-enter the small-business market at a more level playing field once health care reform takes effect. Group Health notified the Idaho Department of Insurance last month of its decision, and affected employers were notified via mail around the same time.
Group Health is a consumer- owned cooperative that serves about 600,000 people in Washington and Idaho.
Associated Press
Groundbreaking held for BMW fiber plant
MOSES LAKE – Gov. Chris Gregoire and other officials have broken ground on a carbon fiber plant in Washington state that will make parts for a BMW electric car.
Plans were announced in April by SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers, a joint venture backed by BMW Group and SGL Group, a European carbon fiber maker. It was drawn to central Washington’s potato country by cheap, sustainable hydropower.
The company is spending $100 million on the first phase of the factory. It will support about 200 construction jobs and initially employ 80 workers.
The plant will import raw materials from Mitsubishi Rayon in Otake, Japan, and spin them into fibers that will be turned into fabric in Germany for components of BMW’s Megacity vehicle.
Associated Press
WMI investors sue
to stop bank transfer
DOVER, Del. – Investors holding $1 billion in Washington Mutual Inc. securities are suing to protect their investment from being transferred to J.P. Morgan Chase as part of Washington Mutual’s bankruptcy reorganization.
A complaint filed Tuesday in bankruptcy court centers on the purported exchange of $4 billion in securities into WMI preferred stock when its flagship bank was seized by federal regulators in 2008 and sold to J.P. Morgan for $1.9 billion.
Certain securities holders claim the exchange never took place, and that WMI had no authority to transfer the securities to its Washington Mutual Bank subsidiary, and thereby to J.P. Morgan.
The complaint also alleges that WMI secretly worked with federal regulators in making the transfer to the bank and lied about its financial health.
Associated Press
Briefcase
• Applications for home loans rose last week as consumers raced to refinance at the lowest rates in decades. The Mortgage Bankers Associations said Wednesday that overall applications increased nearly 7 percent from a week earlier.
• Toyota Motor Corp. is extending the time it takes to develop new vehicles by about four weeks for more quality checks in the wake of its massive safety-related recalls, a top executive said Wednesday.