SLACAL CEO Benjamin McKay and Lloyd’s Americas President Marc Lipman discuss wildfire, AI, new sources of capital and the future of insurance coverage in California.

SAN RAMON, Calif., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Surplus Line Association of California (SLACAL) today released the inaugural episode of its Executive Forum video series, featuring a wide-ranging, on-the-record conversation between SLACAL CEO & Executive Director Benjamin J. McKay and Lloyd’s Americas President Marc Lipman. Moderated by SLACAL Chief Industry & Regulatory Officer David Kodama Jr., the discussion pulls back the curtain on how wildfire risk, artificial intelligence and a new wave of global capital are reshaping where, and how, California residents and businesses find coverage.

California is the world’s fifth-largest economy on its own, and its surplus lines sector now accounts for roughly $24 billion in annual premium. Lloyd’s is proud to be a critical partner; it held an 18% share in the California E&S market in 2025. McKay and Lipman explain why that growth happened, why they say the industry’s biggest reputational myth is flat-out wrong and what’s coming next as AI, data centers and other emerging risks outpace what traditional insurance was built to handle.

In the conversation, viewers will hear:

Why McKay says California’s insurance troubles are “a wildfire crisis, not an insurance crisis,” and how Proposition 103 has shaped the market ever since.Why McKay says surplus lines insurance is safer than most people assume.Why Lipman says the old idea of surplus lines as insurance’s “dumping ground” no longer holds up, and what he calls it instead.How private equity, hedge funds and sovereign wealth are quietly funding California’s next generation of risk transfer.How parametric insurance products emerging from the Lloyd’s Lab—which accelerates the development and adoption of new insurance products and operational solutions for the Lloyd’s market—can help California homeowners after a wildfire or earthquake.

▶ Watch the full conversation now on SLACAL’s YouTube Channel 

The Executive Forum conversation is the first in a planned series exploring the issues shaping California’s insurance market. New episodes, along with additional educational content, will be added to SLACAL’s Learning Center throughout the year.

About the Surplus Line Association of California
As the advisory organization appointed by the California Department of Insurance, the Surplus Line Association of California oversees the state’s nearly $25 billion surplus lines marketplace, serving as a market stabilizer, information authority and early-warning system for regulators and market participants. SLACAL supports regulatory oversight, helps brokers comply with California laws and regulations, processes surplus lines insurance policies and monitors the financial condition of companies on California’s List of Approved Surplus Line Insurers.

About Lloyd’s
Lloyd’s is the only insurance marketplace of its kind in the world. It brings together more than a hundred syndicates and thousands of investors, enabling the market to shoulder more insurance risk for every unit of capital than any other financial institution in the world. The role of the Corporation is to advance and protect the market—by maintaining underwriting discipline and our financial strength; and by attracting expertise, innovation and scale. Our unique global licenses and excellent financial strength ratings provide the infrastructure, oversight and confidence required to understand, price and manage complex and interconnected risks. Risk transfer—properly executed—underpins economic growth, resilience and innovation around the world. This is the role Lloyd’s has played for 337 years, and it remains central to our purpose today.

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SOURCE The Surplus Line Association of California

Bilateral class action under Rule 60(d)(1) seeks relief from void judgments, an accounting, and restitution of money collected from mainland-China defendants in the Northern District of Illinois

CHICAGO, Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A Ningbo-based cross-border e-commerce seller has filed a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking to void default judgments entered against mainland-China defendants in thousands of “Schedule A” cases, and to require the plaintiffs who obtained those judgments to account for and return the money collected under them.

The complaint, filed by Ningbo Jiaruisi E-Commerce Co., Ltd., which formerly operated on Amazon under the storefront name GENISBULB, asks the court to declare the thousands of default judgments void for lack of personal jurisdiction, to halt their continued enforcement, and to order restitution of funds seized from seller accounts.

The Seventh Circuit’s decision in Kangol

The suit follows a May 29, 2026 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the federal appellate court with jurisdiction over the Northern District of Illinois. In Kangol LLC v. Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co., 177 F.4th 793 (7th Cir. 2026), the court held that where the Hague Service Convention applies, it supplies the exclusive means of serving process abroad — and that because no provision of the Convention authorizes service by email in China, email service on a mainland-China defendant is not authorized by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 4(f)(3).

For years before Kangol, judges in the Northern District of Illinois routinely granted Schedule A plaintiffs leave to serve Chinese sellers by email or by posting documents to a website. Sellers who never learned of the case did not appear, and default judgments followed.

The scale of the practice

The Northern District of Illinois is the country’s busiest Schedule A forum. According to the complaint, more than 8,900 Schedule A cases were filed there between 2012 and May 2026, by more than 1,900 different named plaintiffs, with each case typically naming dozens or hundreds of online sellers under a collective caption. The complaint alleges that thousands of those cases ended in default judgments against mainland-China sellers served by email or electronic publication rather than through the Convention, that tens of thousands of sellers were affected, and that tens of millions of dollars were collected from them.

“Kangol corrected an error that was repeated thousands of times in the Northern District,” said Wesley E. Johnson of Cross-Border Counselor LLP, lead counsel in this action and in Kangol. “This case seeks to remedy those errors. Spread across tens of thousands of sellers, it adds up to an enormous uncompensated transfers of value out of the Chinese cross-border e-commerce sector.”

The named plaintiff

In December 2022, WHAM-O, owner of the FRISBEE trademarks, filed a Schedule A action in the Northern District of Illinois, WHAM-O Holding, Ltd. v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule “A,” No. 1:22-cv-06802. On Dec. 13, 2022, the court entered a temporary restraining order that also authorized service by email and electronic publication. GENISBULB was listed as defendant No. 44.

The court later entered a default judgment awarding WHAM-O statutory damages of $200,000 against each defaulting defendant and directing third parties holding the defendants’ funds to restrain those accounts and turn the money over. Amazon released $4,393.41 from GENISBULB’s account to WHAM-O. The balance of the $200,000 judgment, along with a permanent injunction, remains outstanding against the company, and the complaint alleges that marketplaces and payment processors continue to treat the judgment as an adjudicated finding of infringement.

A bilateral class structure

The complaint proposes a plaintiff class of mainland-China Schedule A defendants and, unusually, a defendant class of the Schedule A plaintiffs who obtained non-Hague service authorization and then took default judgments. WHAM-O, which the complaint alleges filed at least 116 Schedule A cases, is named as the proposed representative of the defendant class. A subclass would cover sellers whose funds were actually turned over.

No class has been certified, and the court has not ruled on any of the allegations in the complaint.

Information for affected sellers

Many sellers named in Schedule A cases never received notice that a judgment had been entered against them, and some learned of it only when a marketplace account was frozen or closed. Sellers who believe they may have been affected — or who are simply unsure whether a judgment was entered against them — are welcome to contact the firm with questions. There is no cost or obligation to make an inquiry.

About Cross-Border Counselor LLP

Cross-Border Counselor LLP is a law firm with offices in Illinois, California, Washington and New York that represents United States and Chinese companies in U.S. litigation involving international legal issues, with a particular focus on intellectual property actions and cross-border enforcement.

Media contact
Wesley E. Johnson
Cross-Border Counselor LLP
105 W. Madison Street, Suite 2300, Chicago, Illinois 60602
Phone: +1 (312) 752-4828
Email: wjohnson@cbcounselor.com 

Attorney Advertising

This release is attorney advertising. It describes allegations contained in a complaint filed with the court; those allegations have not been proven, and no court has ruled on them. Nothing here is legal advice on any specific matter, and nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Sources: Complaint filed Sept. 3, 2026 (N.D. Ill.); Kangol LLC v. Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co., 177 F.4th 793 (7th Cir. May 29, 2026); WHAM-O Holding, Ltd. v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule “A,” No. 1:22-cv-06802 (N.D. Ill.).

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SOURCE Cross-Border Counselor LLP

New suite unites ticketing and registration, guest check-in, table management, auctions, paddle raises, real-time reporting, and more in a single fundraising workflow designed by Funraise alongside leading nonprofit organizations.

COSTA MESA, Calif., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Funraise, the fundraising platform built by nonprofit professionals, announced the launch of Funraise Events, a fully integrated events suite that connects event fundraising directly to a nonprofit’s fundraising campaign sites, donor communications, and donor management system. The launch addresses a problem nonprofit fundraisers have voiced for years: event technology that exists in a silo, disconnected from the rest of an organization’s fundraising and donor data.

Learn more about the next wave of fundraising event systems and how Funraise Events will change the future of fundraising events.

Funraise has partnered directly with five nonprofit customers to build side-by-side with our engineering team, giving Funraise users unrestricted access to our product design team and creating a near-perfect fundraising event suite.

For most nonprofits, events aren’t a side initiative; they’re the lifeblood of the fundraising calendar. A gala, walk, or auction can represent the single largest fundraising and community-building night of the year, and it can make or break an organization’s annual goals. That reality is exactly why Funraise Events was designed and built in direct partnership with leading nonprofit organizations, for nonprofits everywhere. The result is a set of purpose-built, highly specific interfaces built for the workflows a fundraising event demands.

Unlike standalone ticketing or auction tools that solve a single friction point and force staff to reconcile data across multiple systems afterward, Funraise has built one continuous fundraising events workflow, from the first pre-event invitation to the post-event thank-you and every report in between.

Ending the point-solution era for nonprofit events

Most nonprofit event technology on the market today was built to solve one problem: sell tickets, run an auction, or manage a paddle raise. Fundraisers are then left to manually stitch that data back into their donor database, often days or weeks after the event, at the cost of mission momentum and relationship-building follow-up.

Funraise Events was built to eliminate that gap entirely. Because it lives inside Funraise’s platform, every ticket sale, sponsorship, meal choice, table assignment, pledge, and paddle raise flows automatically into the same donor record used across a nonprofit’s campaign sites, peer-to-peer fundraisers, donation forms, and email and SMS communications. No need to export and re-import into separate software with a separate login.

“Every nonprofit we’ve talked to has the same story: their event software works fine for the event, but the second the night is over, someone on their team is stuck manually re-entering data into their source-of-truth donor management system,” said Justin Wheeler, CEO and Co-founder of Funraise. “Instead of following the trend and building yet another point solution for events, we built events directly into the fundraising machine nonprofits already run everything else through. That’s the whole idea—one system, from the first invite to the thank-you call, so a team’s best night of the year makes every day after it better too.”

A workflow system, not a feature list

Funraise Events is organized around the full lifecycle of a fundraising event:

Before the event

Custom fundraising campaign sites and event pagesPeer-to-peer fundraising pages tied to the same eventBranded donation forms with custom questions built into ticketingEmail and SMS messaging to engage guests before, during, and after the eventSponsorship and table management with a drag-and-drop interface for seating assignments

During the event

Guest check-in, with mobile app ticket scanning and on-the-spot paymentPaddle raise with configurable giving tiers, assigned paddle numbers, and realtime, trackable pledgesLive auctions run through an easy, guest-friendly bidding experienceLive donation display showing momentum-building totals and goal progress on-screenPledge fulfillment featuring automated follow-up emails and contribution trackingRealtime revenue reporting that gives staff a live view of tickets, donations, auction proceeds, and pledges as they come in

After the event

Connected guest, donor, and pledge records in the nonprofit’s donor CRMAutomated tasks routing follow-up to the right staff memberCustom reports and dashboards that turn event-night data into long-term fundraising intelligence

“Funraise Events solves fundraising events for nonprofits,” said Tony Sasso, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of Funraise.

Real-time reporting, built on one data model

Because Funraise Events is part of the same system as Funraise’s donor CRM and fundraising tools, reporting isn’t a backward-looking process that happens after the event; it’s continuous.

“Nonprofits don’t need another dashboard to check a week or month after an event. They need to know, in the ballroom, whether they’re going to hit their number,” said Jason Swenski, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder of Funraise. “Because ticketing, pledges, auctions, and donations convene in real time, a development director can watch their event progress live, and then walk into Monday’s staff meeting with a donor report that’s already built.”

Designed by nonprofits, for nonprofits

Funraise was founded by a team that built forward-thinking fundraising tools while building a nonprofit movement. Their firsthand experience shaped Funraise from day one.

Rather than build in isolation, Funraise worked hand-in-hand with five nonprofits to design Funraise Events. Met Council, New York Cares, Liberty in North Korea, Tim Hortons Camps Foundation, and Chick Mission tested early versions of the product and advised Funraise on what to build, what to fix, and what an ideal event workflow should feel like, from the chaos of event night check-in to the exhaustion of post-event follow-up.

Funraise asked these teams a simple question: what does it feel like when an event goes right? Not just when the numbers are good, but when your staff gets to actually spend the evening with donors instead of fighting with a check-in tablet. That’s the version of success we built toward.

About Funraise

Funraise is the top all-in-one fundraising platform designed specifically for nonprofits. Leading with innovative, user-friendly software that includes comprehensive CRM and donor management capabilities, integrated email marketing tools, and advanced analytics, Funraise’s mission is to empower nonprofit organizations with beautiful, effective technology that enhances their ability to raise funds and create impact. Learn more about Funraise Events. 

What is Funraise Events?

Funraise Events is a nonprofit event management suite built into Funraise’s fundraising platform, covering registration and ticketing, sponsorship and table management, check-in, paddle raise, auctions, pledge fulfillment, live donation display, and real-time revenue reporting, all connected to a nonprofit’s donor management system, campaign sites, and communication tools.

How is Funraise Events different from other nonprofit event software?

Most event fundraising tools are point solutions that manage a single task, such as ticketing or auctions, in isolation from a nonprofit’s broader donor database. Funraise Events is built directly into Funraise’s platform, so event data—tickets, sponsorships, pledges, and donations—flows automatically into the same donor records used across a nonprofit’s other fundraising tools, eliminating manual data entry and post-event reconciliation.

Who helped design Funraise Events?

Five nonprofit organizations—Met Council, New York Cares, Liberty in North Korea, Tim Hortons Camps Foundation, and Chick Mission—worked directly with Funraise’s product team to shape the system workflows before launch.

Does Funraise Events include donor management and reporting after the event?

Yes. Guests, donors, and pledges captured during an event automatically populate a nonprofit’s donor CRM and portfolios, trigger automated follow-up tasks, and feed real-time reports and dashboards.

Who is Funraise built for?

Funraise is built for nonprofit fundraising and development teams that want a single platform rather than a collection of disconnected tools. Hundreds of nonprofits of all types and sizes use Funraise to run donation forms, fundraising websites, peer-to-peer campaigns, recurring giving, events, and donor management.

Media Contact

Erin Booker, erin@funraise.org

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SOURCE Funraise