| New push on health care in the works
The failure of his massive health-care plan to pass the Illinois General Assembly this year hasn't discouraged Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who will ask the legislature next year to create a state-regulated pool of affordable private health-insurance policies for individuals, families and small businesses. .
State Farm agent expands with move
PRINCETON — Growing her small town business and providing the best insurance and financial services around is a priority for State Farm agent Lorita Hellman.With a new location and an expanded team, she hopes to better meet her client’s goals and objectives."The main thing I want to do is to have people, without a doubt, understand how very, very much we want to help them with their insurance and financial services, and in the right way," Hellman said."We want them to feel like they enjoy being here so very much that they don’t want to have their insurance anywhere else. That’s the kind of service we want to provide; that’s the ultimate goal," she added.As of Oct. 1 the business relocated to 324 N. Main St., to a newly-renovated Victorian building, that is more than 100 years old.With the move, Hellman expanded her business team to include her son, Adam Hellman, who will serve as an agency contact representative, and will greet clients, process payments and keep client information up to date.Also on the team are Susan Bastion and Barbara Kunst, both multiple line representatives, who have a combined 25 years experience, in addition to Lorita who also has 21 years of agency experience.They are both fully licensed in all lines of insurance with Bastion specializing in bank and commercial insurance, while Kunst specializes in health and life insurance."They are both also experts in property and casualty insurance on their auto and fire insurance line," Hellman said.With the move, Hellman said she would like to increase her clientele at a more rapid pace, with an emphasis on auto growth."We paid dividends last year; we lowered our rate; we’re extremely competitive right now," Hellman said.Hellman said she had her eye on the building, which had sat vacant for several years, and was ready to take the next step."I’ve always found this place to be extremely charming.
State grants charter to Greensboro business bank
Greensboro is a step closer to getting its first business-only bank. The North Carolina Banking Commission has granted a charter to Premier Commercial Bank, a startup lender for small and medium-sized businesses. The bank said it expects to open in early 2008. Premier was founded by Frank Gavigan, a longtime Triad banker who was most recently senior credit officer at 1st State Bank in Burlington. It's joining a space that's become increasingly crowded in North Carolina since Raleigh's Paragon Commercial Bank became the state's first business-only bank in 1999. The Triad has yet to get in on the action, however, with most of the startups planting their headquarters in Charlotte or the Triangle. So far, Premier has raised more than $11 million in its initial stock offering, which began Aug.
Vaile quits as Nationals leader
NATIONALS leader Mark Vaile has announced that he will not re-contest his role at a coming party room meeting. The former deputy prime minister said today he would move to the backbench in the interests of renewing the party. "We will conduct a party room meeting and have a ballot for the key positions in the National Party and I'm here today to announce that I will not be a contender for the leadership of the National Party when that takes place," he said. "Over the last couple of days, particularly as I drove to Canberra this morning with Wendy to come down and start packing up the office to make way for the incoming deputy prime minister we reflected on a whole range of issues and we're at a point in the history of politics of Australia where we believe and I believe that it’s time for an opportunity for a bit of a change in the leadership of our party." Despite hoping to gain two seats to increase its representation to 14 in the federal parliament, the Nationals failed to hold two seats – Dawson and Page – and failed to win the newly formed, notionally-Nationals seat of Flynn in Queensland.
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