COLUMBIA -- One of the employee benefits industry's biggest hitters has a new name and a new look. Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company launched a new brand, logo and tagline designed to better communicate who the company is and what it does. The Columbia-based company announced the new name "Colonial Life."

COLUMBIA -- The number of bankruptcy filings rose about 18 percent in South Carolina last year, partly because of troubled real estate and mortgage markets. South Carolina ranked 45th nationwide on filings per capita, down from 36th from a year ago, according to Jupiter eSources. The increase in bankruptcy filings was the nation’s third lowest. Nationwide housing woes could bring state bankruptcy filings near the 12,000 mark this year.

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COLUMBIA -- State NAACP leader Lonnie Randolph said that mortgage relief plans should be helping those already damaged by subprime lending standards he called fraudulent and racially discriminatory. Blacks are following the rules of hard work and thrift to achieve the American dream of home ownership, but they have been placed in high-cost subprime loans at higher rates than whites with similar qualifications, he said. “The American dream for too many African-Americans is the American nightmare,” Randolph said.

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COLUMBIA -- South Carolina’s largest publicly traded companies as a whole trailed the stock performance of the nation’s largest firms in 2007. The stock of South Carolina’s 16 largest companies, measured by annual revenue, dropped by 20 percent in 2007, while the S&P 500 Index rose by 4 percent during the same period. Just four of the S.C. companies -- UCI Medical Affiliates, BlackBaud, ScanSource and SCANA -- saw their stock prices increase.

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