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Non-Tech : The Y2K Newspaper -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (177)	12/7/1999 8:22:00 PM
From: hunchback	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 198

Port suing over Y2K Dec 6, 1999 George Erb In a case that could have enormous implications for the insurance industry, the Port of Seattle has sued seven insurers over who must pay for up to $11 million worth of computer repairs necessitated by the so-called Y2K bug. It is the first such lawsuit in Washington and one of only a handful in the country, observers say. The stakes are especially high for the insurance industry. If courts rule that insurance policies cover Y2K repairs, the insurance industry would get stuck with a larger share of the nation's repair bill, which is expect to run into billions of dollars. "I think the insurance companies are going to be running scared over this issue," said Colleen Christensen of Claflin & Christensen LLP, a Seattle litigator who represents policy holders in disputes with insurers. "It's huge." The insurance industry is hoping that standard provisions in its policies will prevent a proliferation of Y2K lawsuits. "I'm hoping that we won't see many at all," said Eric Goldberg, senior counsel for the American Insurance Association in Washington, D.C. The port filed suit Nov. 16 in King County Superior Court against the Lexington Insurance Co. of Boston, the Unigard Insurance Co. of Bellevue and five other insurance companies, including Underwriters at Lloyd's of London. According to court documents, port officials in 1997 began assessing whether the agency's computers, software, circuit boards and computer chips could be damaged by the Year 2000 bug. The Y2K bug arises in systems that use just two digits to denote the year, so 2000 can be mistaken for 1900. By last year, the port had determined that 232 computer systems in its aviation and marine divisions were vulnerable to the Y2K bug. In some cases, port computers had already lost data and electronic components because of the glitch, court papers say. The port has so far spent $7 million on the problem, and the agency believes the cost of repairs could reach $11 million, according to Mealey's Year 2000 Report, a legal journal that specializes in Y2K issues. Port officials could not be reached for comment. The port reported the loss to the seven insurance companies, which began looking into the matter in 1998. Now, months later, the port believes the insurance companies will deny its claim, according to court documents. A spokeswoman for Unigard said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation. The outcome of the case could hinge on two legal issues, attorneys say. The port says provisions in its insurance policies provided coverage for such things as "electronic data processing system equipment." One provision included coverage "for loss due to computer virus," according to the lawsuit. How much weight the court gives these provisions could have broader implications for other insurance companies. "It will make other insureds look back at their policy coverage and see if they have anything like this," Christensen said. The case also revolves around a so-called "sue-and-labor" clause, a centuries-old legal provision that is now appearing more often in insurance policies for large organizations. It works like this: A policy holder that sees a potential for damage -- such as a ship with a crack in the hull -- has to tell the insurance company and take steps to minimize the loss that it will claim under its coverage, Goldberg said. In the port case, attorneys may argue whether the agency was trying to minimize Y2K damage to its computer systems for the benefit of the insurance companies, or just trying to replace old computers for its own benefit -- at the insurance companies' expense. At least four companies and two public agencies have sued their insurance companies over Y2K losses this year, said John Hayes, managing editor of Mealey's Year 2000 Report. In one case, an insurance company sued its corporate customer. Corporations that are taking on their insurance companies over Y2K coverage include Unisys Corp. and GTE. Last summer, Xerox Corp. filed a $183 million lawsuit in Connecticut against the American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co. The day before, the insurance company sued Xerox in New York. In Portland, Nike Inc. on Nov. 9 sued the American Home Assurance Co. And in Michigan, the Royal Oak school district last month sued the Michigan Association of School Boards/School Employers Group, an insurance pool for school districts. amcity.com [more to follow...]

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (177)	12/9/1999 10:15:00 AM
From: Bill Ounce	Respond to of 198

csy2k: Omaha govt computer crashes after remediation, "problem not Y2K related" [Here's a news article plus some additional info on a remediation problem] Thu, 09 Dec 1999 04:39:52 comp.software.year-2000 Re: Omaha govt computer crashes after remediation ralph@ee.net (Ralph Daugherty) Matt Daly wrote: > > omaha.com > > The accounting system used by Douglas County and the City of Omaha was expected > to be up and working today after crashing Sunday when new Y2K-compliant > applications were switched from the testing to the production mode. > > Mike Carpenter, director of information services, said the problem was not > related to the Y2K conversion, but to the transfer of programs and data. > Carpenter had expected the computer system to be working by late Tuesday > afternoon, but it wasn't. > > County Clerk Tom Cavanaugh and County Treasurer Julie Haney, both primary users > of the system for the county, described the problem as a crisis. They said > information services did not notify their offices of the problem. > > Cavanaugh asked the County Board on Tuesday to place the matter on the agenda > as an emergency item for discussion. > > [...] Something for both Cory and me. S/390 and AS/400. zulu.co.douglas.ne.us Matt, here's the user response to typical IS. Cavanaugh and Haney are the users, and Carpenter is the dealer: Cavanaugh's office uses the system to write payroll checks, checks to vendors and to make payments on bonds and to the Internal Revenue Service. "We're 24 days from the new year," Cavanaugh said. "This is not a good sign. There is a deep concern a crisis does exist." Haney's office uses the system to disburse the taxes that have been collected for the more than 150 political subdivisions in the county. "This is a huge deal," Haney said. "Mr. Carpenter made this sound like a minor glitch. This is no minor glitch." --------------------------------------------------------------------- [follow-up post] Cory, it's a S/390 COBOL system. Also everybody, I've included what their Y2K manager has to say. Sound familiar? zulu.co.douglas.ne.us ... LGFS financial system for the city. The financial application is being worked on by the software vendor, American Management Systems and Douglas County Information Services staff is testing. This effort should be finished in August, 1999. We continue to test the Financial Accounting System used by Douglas County and the City of Omaha. We are working with the vendor, American Management Systems, to make it compliant.

To: Bill Ounce who wrote (177)	12/9/1999 10:20:00 AM
From: Bill Ounce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 198

c.s.y2k PSE&G won't fault Y2K in billing error [If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, ...] Thu, 09 Dec 1999 08:37:52 comp.software.year-2000 PSE&G pulls a "Clinton" flw@together.net [...] THE RECORD PSE&G won't fault Y2K in billing error Thursday, December 9, 1999 The Associated Press NEWARK -- The company says a Y2K problem had nothing to do with it, but about 250,000 Public Service Electric and Gas Co. customers are getting bills that say their next meter reading won't happen until the end of next year. The bills are wrong and will be corrected, the company said. The error was the result of a computer software glitch, but was unrelated to the so-called millennium bug resulting from the changeover from 1999 to 2000, said Calvin Ledford, who runs the utility's billing operation. "This had absolutely nothing to do with Y2K at all," he said. "This problem was caused by a flaw in new billing software that we started using when we went to a new bill format in October." [...] PSE&G has not yet decided whether to individually notify all 250,000 customers who received the erroneous notices. But customers who call the utility are being informed of the correct date for their next scheduled meter reading. The mishap was the second large-scale computer-generated billing error by the utility this year. In January, 61,000 customers received erroneous bills based on a date from 1995 that was being used for a Y2K test on PSE&G's computers. Copyright © 1999 Bergen Record Corp.