The California Department of Motor Vehicles this week issued a reminder of new laws or changes to existing laws going into effect Jan 1, 2019 that motorist and auto insurance professionals should be aware of.

The new laws or changes are:

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Wednesday imposed a $4.3 million penalty on American Labor Alliance and CompOne USA for selling workers’ compensation and liability policies to employers of farmworkers without being properly licensed with the California Department of Insurance.

The penalty follows a cease and desist order issued by CDI 2016 against the Agricultural Contracting Services Association Inc. and its affiliates, the American Labor Alliance and CompOne USA, and Board Chair Marcus Asay, and an order issued by Jones in 2017 them to refrain from selling insurance policies in California.

The California Department of Industrial Relations issued a report on Tuesday showing that 376 Californians died on the job in 2017, the same as in 2016.

California’s workplace fatality rate remains stable with slight fluctuations over the past eight years, while on a national level the rate of fatalities fell from 3.6 to 3.5 per 100,000 workers, according to the DIR.

(TNS) - Behind a chain-linked fence along Fifth Avenue between C and D streets in San Rafael, workers using a crane hoisted a bundle of steel beams that would be integrated into the framework of what will soon be a new $36 million public safety building.

“Right now we are erecting steel beams and columns for the first and second floor,” said Jorge Meza, the project manager with Kitchel CEM of Sacramento who is overseeing work.

Monday marked a return to school and some semblance of routine for thousands of children who lost their homes to a deadly wildfire in Northern California.

Schools in Butte County have been closed since Nov. 8, when the Camp Fire ignited and quickly swept through the towns of Paradise, Concow and Magalia in what would become the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century. At least 88 people were killed and dozens remain unaccounted for.

(TNS) — Sixty-three-year-old Ernest Foss had swollen legs and couldn’t walk. Vinnie Carota, 65, was missing a leg and didn’t have a car. Evelyn Cline, 83, had a car but struggled to get in it without help.

Dorothy Herrera, 93, had onset dementia and her husband Louis, 86, couldn’t drive anymore. And 78-year-old John Digby was just feeling sick the morning of the Camp Fire when he refused a neighbor’s offer to drive him to safety.

As every risk ­manager knows, the world is as fraught with risk as ever. This becomes even more apparent as natural disasters, cyberattacks, corporate malfeasance and political and economic uncertainty make headlines and create new business concerns. The following review of some of the notable risk events of 2018 can both remind us where we have been and provide insight into the challenges and opportunities we could face in the years to come.

Toward the end of a recent news conference held to update the public on the recovery effort in Paradise, a man rose from the audience with a question.

He understood that making the burn area safe for people to return to would be difficult. Especially with the near-constant threat of debris flows. But when could he go back?

A magnitude-4.0 earthquake rattled the rural west side of the San Joaquin Valley early, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed.

No damages were reported.

Homes in wildfire-prone areas around the U.S. could be built to better withstand blazes without increasing the cost of construction, according to a new report.

The research released Tuesday was sponsored in part by the insurance industry and marks the first attempt to quantify the expenses associated with building residences that meet stringent flame-resistant criteria. Few states have adopted such codes, often citing housing costs, but the new findings suggest fire-plagued communities could curb damage and save lives with minimal effect on home buyers.