The chief executive of a bankrupt Scranton, Pa., insurance agency who pleaded guilty in connection with a $1.3 million insurance premium theft scheme was sentenced to up to 16 1/2 years in state prison.

Sterner Insurance, based in Coopersburg, Pa., hired three new employees to serve as insurance consultants. The company hired Patrick McElwee, Justin Weber and Jessica Montgomery.

Two Pennsylvania insurance associations say they do not expect that a bill that calls for electing rather than appointing the state’s insurance commissioner to earn Pennsylvania General Assembly approval this year.

The recent judicial trend seems to be that the signature legislation of President Obama and congressional Democrats is that their effort to seize one-fifth of the U.S. economy from the private sector and empower the federal government to dictate that Americans purchase health insurance violates what our nation’s founders deemed, “The Supreme Law of the Land.”

A Pottstown, Pa., man was accused of fabricating and submitting a false $1.39 million insurance claim for storm damage to a series of modular townhomes that he owned and allegedly hid in protective wrapping for nearly a year.

A federal appeals court declined a request by investors in Aetna to revive a securities fraud suit alleging the company made false statements about “disciplined” pricing strategies to boost the health insurer’s stock price so three top executives could sell $61 million in stock.

Keystone Insurers Group, based in Northumberland, Pa., has formed a partnership it has been interested in since entering Ohio three years ago.

Pennsylvania’s insurance commissioner, Joel Ario, is taking a position in the Obama Administration, where he will direct the creation of health exchanges.

A Pennsylvania man convicted of killing his business partner in 1996 to collect on his $650,000 life insurance policy has won a new trial.

Securities regulators in Pennsylvania and other states are warning investors to keep an eye out for “mutations of old schemes and themes” as con artists seek to profit from new federal financial reform legislation.