US Finance and Insurance Sector NAICS 52

Aug 20, 2025 - New York Attorney General Sues Zelle For Fraud

• The New York Attorney General’s office has sued e-payment platform Zelle for $1 billion, accusing the platform of not doing enough to secure its system against fraudsters. The service is owned by seven of the largest US banks, including US Bank, Capital One, and Wells Fargo, among others. The suit claims Zelle and its banking backers know fraud occurs on the site, have ignored customer complaints, and have resisted implementing safeguards, allowing bad actors to run rampant on the platform. Zelle denies the accusations, claiming that the fraud occurs at the point a customer is tricked into sending money, rather than originating on the website itself. The New York AG counters that the fraud encompasses hacking into accounts, tricking customers into buying non-existent goods, and scammers impersonating banks or utilities and asking for payments. The suit demands Zella beef up security and pay restitution to defrauded New Yorkers.
• The homeowners insurance market will have a difficult 2025, with S&P Global Market Intelligence forecasting losses for the seventh time in nine years. Homeowners insurance lines are projected to finish the year with a 106.1% combined ratio (an industry metric of how many dollars an insurer spends on claims versus what they take in in premiums). California wildfires in January are incurring significant industry losses, so much so that it is offsetting underwriting gains in private auto insurance (forecast at a 95.1% combined ratio). State Farm has incurred the majority of losses from the wildfires, and its $6.57 billion bill from California could account for as much as a four point gain in the combined ratio for the entire industry. State Farm has already raised rates to compensate, even as it is slow to process claims, sparking a backlash among its customers and insurance regulators.

• A federal judge overruled a policy from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) that barred medical debt from being included on people’s credit reports. The rule went into effect in January 2025 just before President Biden left office and would have cut about $50 billion in medical bills from credit reports of about 15 million Americans. It was also expected to boost the credit score of people carrying medical debt by 20 points and increase approval of mortgage loans by an average of about 22,000 per year. The CFPB maintained that medical debt is not a good indicator of a person’s ability to pay their bills since medical debt often includes mistakes and including them can artificially affect credit scores. One in five Americans have at least one medical debt on their credit reports, per the CFPB.
• Paper checks draw closer to extinction as the US government transitions to a fully digital payment system which will permanently alter how federal payments are made. As of June 2025, out of 69 million social security recipients, only about 418,000 of those households receive payments through paper checks. An executive order from the Trump administration mandates that all federal payments - intergovernmental payments, benefit payments, tax refunds, and government vendor payments - become digital by September 30, 2025. The order intends to eliminate the costs of processing paper checks and reduce instances of fraud. Paper checks are susceptible to fraud through mail theft and are 16 times more likely to be reported lost, stolen, or undeliverable than electronic payments. The government will make exceptions for certain beneficiaries who do not have access to electronic banking or require emergency funds.