What happens if you have a complaint regarding your life insurance carrier, plan, or broker or just want additional support beyond what is offered by your carrier? That’s where the Department of Life Insurance comes into play. Let’s take a look at how this department functions and what questions you can ask there. First, it’s important to understand that the Department of Insurance and their authority is administered State by State. Each State will have it’s own Department of Insurance and different rules/options apply. You can quickly find your department by typing in to Google, “Department of Insurance” followed by your State. The other point to notice is that all insurance types are grouped together under one heading. Each state treats how these are broken out a little differently but Health and Life can generally be found under a separate license (for the broker) and heading from what is…

T he European Commission said Wednesday it has asked Google to comment on allegations by rivals it demotes their sites in its search rankings. EU spokeswoman Amelia Torres said the EU antitrust office has received complaints from three Google rivals, but had not “opened a formal investigation, for the time being.” She declined to name the three rivals or provide other details, saying. “We are in a stage of looking at the allegations.” Google said it would provide “feedback and additional information on these complaints,” but stressed it was not violating any EU antitrust rules. The European Commission did not name the companies that have filed complaints. On a corporate blog , Julia Holtz, Google’s Senior Competition Counsel said they were Foundem , a British price comparison site and the French legal search engine ejustice.fr that complained about being…

F rance’s national railway has awarded Bombardier Transportation BBD.B-T a contract that could eventually be worth €8-billion – the equivalent of $11.4-billion. The initial order for 80 regional trains and options for 49 more could exceed €1-billion, or about $1.4-billion at current exchange rates. Subsequent orders from SNCF could increase deliveries to 860 trains, worth about €8-billion. The contract, which comes three months after Bombardier was selected as the preferred bidder, will be financed by six regions in France. The trains will be assembled by Bombardier Transportation in France, with more than 70 per cent of their content coming from within the country The first deliveries will begin in 2013 and continue until 2016. The trains will increase the French railway’s capacity by 20 per cent while using 15 per cent less energy. The SNCF and the six French regions launched a request for proposals in 2008 to renew…

G oogle Inc. GOOG-Q has scrapped the China leg of a regional event to show software developers its first smart phone, the Nexus One, in Beijing, its second such move following its threatened pull-out from the country. Google will introduce the sleek touch screen phone to software developers in Hong Kong and Taiwan next week, but will not stage a similar event in Beijing as developers were originally expecting, said a source close to the company, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the situation’s sensitivity. “If Google did not have such an issue with the Chinese government, they would have conducted a similar event in China too,” the source said. Google’s Beijing-based spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.

G reece may see its credit rating downgraded further within a month, a leading credit ratings agency said Wednesday as much of the country went on strike to protest against upcoming austerity measures. Standard & Poor’s, one of the world’s leading three credit ratings agency, said it is maintaining its rating on the country’s debt but that it is vulnerable to a downgrade over the coming month — which would make it more difficult and more expensive for Greece to borrow in the international money markets. The Greek government has pledged to reduce the country’s borrowing but is meeting resistance from many quarters in the country. More to come