This Newsletter is sponsored by Wm. E. Morrell Inc.(Morrell Insurance, founded in 1909) for the purpose of having our subscribers current on insurance news, products, and services. Although in harder times, it is difficult to reflect on blessings received throughout this year, our staff wishes you a very Happy Thanksgiving Day.

The National Grange Mutual Insurance Company (NGM) is one of the many insurance companies which Morrell Insurance represents as an Agent. NGM is part of the Main Street America Group. Although we market NGM products mainly for commercial customers, Main Street America does provide helpful information for personel lines products. We have posted on our Blog their article on Auto, Homeower, Safety and general Insurance Tips. The article links to mutliple sites providing vast but easy to read information on topics such as Wiinter driving tips, Fire prevention, Hurricane preparation, Money saving tips, Emergency Management, Homeowner safety and much more!

See our article on Helpful Insurance Information - Safety Tips at The Lower New York Insurance Blog.

The Insurance Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance Carriers have withstood favorably the credit crunch of resent. Much news has been posted on Credit Swaps and the downing of AIG. Credit swaps are financial derivitives used by financial guaranty insurers (FGI) to insure certain types of securities such as bonds and commercial paper. This type of coverage is not based on the same insurance practices as the P&C insurance carriers.

In The Lower New York Insurance Blog and in last month's Newsletter, we had posted several articles on insurance companies solvency. See our articles on Insurance Companies - Insolvencies/ Guaranty Funds , Property and Casualty Insurers and Bailout and Are Insurance Companies Solvent?- AIG as an Example .

On September 22, 2008, the New York State Governor David Patterson and Superindentent Eric Dinallo released a letter from the New York State Department of Insurance on Best practices for financial guaranty insurers. From his letter the first two sections are copied and posted in our Blog for your reading. The full document Circular Letter No. 19 (2008) can be found on the New York State Website.

See our article on NY Regulation: Financial Guaranty Insurance Companies: at The Lower New York Insurance Blog.