
Interest rates, the top business story of 2023, moderated in 2024, but insurance costs continued to skyrocket, sending last year’s No. 3 story to the top of this year’s annual list.
The sticker shock has been felt by customers of virtually every category of insurance — commercial and personal lines, property and casualty, group and individual health insurance. Rates for homeowners insurance in Arkansas climbed by about 20% this year, following widespread damage from storms in 2023, and brokers say health insurance renewals for 2025 are routinely in double digits.
Other major business stories include new developments in the burgeoning lithium industry in south Arkansas; the arrival of new veterinary, dental and medical schools; conflict at the state Supreme Court; and a rare solar eclipse.
See the list below for the top Arkansas business stories of 2024.

1. Insurance Rates Soar
Insurance premiums continued to soar this year across all sectors in Arkansas, from commercial property to health care, as insurance companies try to keep pace with rising claims caused by increasing costs.
In 2024, a number of insurance companies raised premiums by double digits to cover losses. That trend is expected to continue.
Rates for homeowners insurance in Arkansas climbed by about 20% this year as insurance companies struggled to keep stride with rising property damage claims caused by more severe weather and high material costs.
Nine companies writing homeowners insurance policies had increases of 24% or more in 2024.
In 2023, Arkansas had the second-highest loss ratio in the nation — 144%. The insurance industry uses loss ratio — the ratio of premium collected to losses — as a key indicator of a company’s profit.
Meanwhile, losses for insurers and premiums for commercial properties were at all-time highs. Powerful storms are raking more areas of the country more frequently. And inflation has pushed up the cost of rebuilding apartments, stores, restaurants and warehouses. Some insurers are pulling back in Arkansas and pulling out entirely from coastal states.
Commercial property insurers’ pure direct loss ratio in Arkansas last year was nearly 127%, up from 120% in 2022 and 81.2% in 2021.
Health insurance premiums also reached new levels in 2024 and are expected to climb next year. Private health insurance plans rose 7% in 2024, and they are expected to rise again in 2025. Some agents called it the worst renewal year in decades.
The increased prices had employers scrambling to find ways to curb costs, including choosing plans with higher deductibles or considering self-insured plans.
Those in the health insurance industry blame the soaring rates on higher health care labor costs, inflation and the rise of prescription drug prices.
If that wasn’t bad enough, as cybercriminals have grown more sophisticated and attacks more frequent, businesses face a reality in which cyber liability insurance is no longer optional. What was once a specialty product has become nearly as fundamental as property insurance — and potentially more crucial for a company’s survival.

2. Fed Finally Cuts Interest Rates
On Sept. 18, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a half percentage point to between 4.75% and 5%, its first reduction since 2020 and a signal that the central bank believed it was winning its two-and-a-half-year-old war against pandemic-fueled inflation.
The Fed has been trying to achieve an economic “soft landing,” reining in inflation that reached 40-year highs — and that was a key issue in this year’s presidential election — while ensuring the overall U.S. economy remains strong.
The inflation surge began as the global economy started to reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which increased energy and commodity prices.
In the U.S., the Consumer Price Index, the most widely used measure of inflation, started to soar, posting a 12-month inflation rate of 9% in June 2022. So, beginning in March 2022, the Fed began raising its key lending rate, increasing it 11 times in 2022 and 2023. The central bank was seeking to slow the economy by making borrowing — for business expansion or to buy a house or vehicle, for example — more expensive.
Mortgage rates in particular rose, reaching an average high of 7.76% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in November 2023. High rates combined with high home prices and a shortage of housing to make home ownership unaffordable for many Americans. And while mortgage rates have fallen slightly, they remain high by pre-pandemic standards.
And though inflation, too, has declined — 2.7% in November, on an annual basis — it remains too high for many wallets. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s promise to curb inflation resonated with many voters, contributing to his victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in November.
On Nov. 7, the Fed cut rates by another quarter of a percentage point and was forecast to do the same in December, after this article went to press.
![A Standard Lithium employee at its demonstration plant in El Dorado. [Madison Ogle] ]](https://arkansasbusiness.wppcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2023.7.20_Standard_Lithium-20_opt-e1734755046981.jpg)
3. Lithium’s Roller-Coaster Year
Lithium operations in south Arkansas hardly knew up from down in 2024.
Investment took off and faith in the state’s underground brine as a resource for making battery-quality lithium products soared. But prices sagged to a three-year low and hopes for quick agreement on royalty payments to mineral owners collapsed.
The daunting scope of building wells, pipelines, roads and power lines to pull brine up from 8,000 feet below the surface and strip it of lithium before returning it below also became apparent. Experts said building out the infrastructure could run into the billions of dollars.
Nevertheless, the state could still become a world leader in lithium.
In October, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey reported enough lithium in Smackover Formation brine to meet world demand, a “mother lode” that could represent 35% to 136% of the nation’s current lithium resource estimate.
Big players like Koch, formerly known as Koch Industries, and Exxon Mobil, Lanxess and Albemarle have invested hundreds of millions in Arkansas lithium plans, and Equinor of Norway invested up to $160 million in May to become a 45% stakeholder in Standard Lithium’s project to build a billion-dollar commercial extraction facility near Lewisville. The U.S. Department of Energy selected that project, and another by TerraVolta, for up to $225 million each in conditional grant money.
In November, the Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission rejected a proposal by Standard, Albemarle, Lanxess, Exxon subsidiary Saltwerx and Tetra Technologies to set a landowner royalty rate of 1.8% of the value of lithium carbonate equivalent. Members said the companies had presented insufficient evidence that the royalty was fair to landowners, who had sought a 12.5% royalty.
The issue will stretch into next year, and is important because no Arkansas-sourced lithium can be sold until a royalty is set.
The companies pointed out that lithium demand softened in 2024, and lithium carbonate prices slid to just above $10,000 in September, a three-year low and far from the $70,000 a ton the compound commanded a few years ago.

4. Health Care Education Booms
Arkansas took strides in expanding its health care education landscape in 2024, with plans advancing for the state’s new medical, veterinary and dental schools.
The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville secured preliminary accreditation in October from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, clearing the way for student recruitment and applications.
The medical school plans to welcome its first class of 48 students in July 2025, offering a “whole health” approach to medical education. The school, which will waive tuition for its first five cohorts, will share a campus with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Heartland Whole Health Institute. Construction of the 154,000-SF campus is expected to be completed in the summer of 2025.
In September, the medical school also entered into a 30-year, $700 million affiliation agreement with Mercy and the Heartland Whole Health Institute to expand health care access in northwest Arkansas.
Lyon College of Batesville also finalized plans for its two professional schools following a year of location uncertainty. The college secured a lease agreement in November for one of two graduate programs for veterinary science in Arkansas. Its School of Veterinary Medicine will be located on a multi-acre campus in Cabot. The development will feature both the veterinary school and the Cabot Animal Services Center. Lyon aims to begin construction in 2025 and enroll its first veterinary students in the fall of 2026.
Meanwhile, Lyon’s School of Dental Medicine found its home in Little Rock’s Riverdale neighborhood, with renovations underway to prepare for its first class in summer 2025.
And Arkansas State University in Jonesboro appointed Dr. Heidi E. Cox Banse as dean of its College of Veterinary Medicine, which is on track to make a planned opening date in the fall of 2026. The program received additional support in September through a $534,000 commitment from the Kays Foundation Endowment for Veterinary Excellence.

5. Workforce Challenges
One word sums up a persistent challenge cited by business executives in Arkansas and across the country in 2024: labor.
While the imbalance has improved in the past few months, as of October there were still more job openings in the United States (7.4 million) than unemployed workers (7 million). The tight labor market that followed the upheaval of the COVID pandemic is more pronounced in Arkansas than in most states.
That shortage hits the bottom line in two ways. First, businesses don’t have enough workers to satisfy demand for their products and services. Second, the employees they do have can demand higher wages.
Unemployment nationally started 2024 at 3.7% but has been at 4% or a bit above since May, a slight loosening of the labor market that Arkansas did not see. Statewide unemployment trended lower, starting the year at 3.7% — equal to the national rate — and leveling off at 3.3% from June to October. (The rate for November was released after this article went to press.)
Unfortunately, Arkansas is also below the national average in its labor force participation rate. The rate is the percentage of the population who are either working or actively looking for work, and Arkansans are more likely to be neither. It’s a metric that has trended generally downward as the population has aged. Arkansas’ labor force participation rate in October was 58.1%, having recovered to pre-COVID levels, compared with 62.1% nationally.
In December, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported that Arkansas is over-represented in the category of young adults that economists call NEET — not in education, employment or training. While 17.6% of Arkansans ages 18-24 were essentially doing nothing productive, the “disconnection rate” among young adults in the rural parts of the state was even higher, 19.8%.

6. Pope County Casino Plans Fold
After six years of twists, legal reversals and politics, prospects for a new casino in Pope County ended 2024 facing almost impossible odds.
Arkansans voted 56% to 44% in favor of Issue 2 on November’s ballot, a measure backed by the casino competitor Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The amendment to the Arkansas Constitution revoked the gaming license granted earlier in the year to Cherokee Nation Businesses of Catoosa, Oklahoma. CNB and an affiliate, Cherokee Nation Entertainment, had battled for years with Gulfside Casino Partnership to win the Pope County franchise. The Arkansas Racing Commission issued since-revoked licenses to each side at different points.
Before November’s vote, CNB was poised to break ground on 325 acres along Interstate 40 on the edge of Russellville. The plan was to build Legends Resort & Casino, a nearly $400 million project with 50,000 SF of gaming space, a 200-room hotel and a 15,000-SF conference center.
CNB has a long-shot chance to revive those plans: a federal lawsuit claims that Issue 2 violates the tribe’s constitutional rights. A judge rejected issuing an injunction to stop the new amendment from taking effect. A trial is expected to settle the matter next year.
The Choctaw Nation, which owns the Choctaw Casino & Resort-Pocola, across the Oklahoma line from Fort Smith, spent about $30 million to promote Issue 2.
Amendment 100 of 2018 altered Arkansas law to allow casino gambling at four sites: Oaklawn in Hot Springs and Southland in West Memphis, which already had racetrack gambling, and at new sites in Jefferson and Pope counties.
What has Pope County missed out on?
Oaklawn, Southland and Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, which is owned by the Quapaw Nation, generated $686.6 million in gross gaming revenue in 2023, supported 9,000 jobs and paid state and local taxes of $234 million, according to the American Gaming Association.
![Interstate 30 construction congestion in Saline County. [Jason Burt]](https://arkansasbusiness.wppcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/JBP_1143_opt.jpg)
7. Infrastructure Progress
Business leaders and citizens of Hot Springs complained to the Arkansas Department of Transportation that the long-delayed Interstate 30 widening project in Saline County was costing them valuable tourism.
Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, for example, said the traffic headaches were behind an estimated 30% drop in revenue.
ARDOT responded by threatening to find the $187.3 million project’s contractor, Johnson Bros. of Grapevine, Texas, in default of its contract. It also instituted a daily $77,000 fine.
The threat worked as progress on the 5.5-mile worksite picked up considerably and construction was expected to be finished by the end of the year, two years behind its original deadline.
Other large projects proceeded more smoothly for ARDOT. The I-30 Crossing project in Little Rock neared completion of the 6.7-mile first phase that included an expansive 10-lane bridge over the Arkansas River.
The $633 million project was ARDOT’s first design-build project and the first phase of the organization’s first $1 billion project. It is expected to be completed by the summer of 2025.
In October, ARDOT awarded a $282.5 million grant to Manhattan Road & Bridge of Tulsa to build a 3.1-mile stretch of I-49 in Fort Smith that includes a bridge over the Arkansas River. It is the first of four phases of a 13.7-mile project to connect I-40 in Alma to Highway 22.
Transportation officials and business leaders have long said that getting the bridge built over the Arkansas River is the linchpin of the effort to eventually complete the 162 miles of I-49 between Fort Smith and Texarkana.
It wasn’t the only bridge news for ARDOT, which received a $393 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to build a new bridge for I-55 over the Mississippi River in Memphis. ARDOT will contribute another $250 million, as will Tennessee, to replace the existing bridge that was built in 1949 and served yeoman’s duties for three months when the I-40 bridge was closed for repairs in 2021.

8. Solar Eclipse Darkens State
Arkansas tourism boosters foresaw a good economic omen in the heavens during the months leading up to the Great American Solar Eclipse on April 8.
Some overly euphoric seers projected a flood of travelers that could temporarily double the state’s population of 3 million and deliver a multimillion-dollar windfall due to the astronomical event.
More moderate statistical sages foresaw anywhere from 200,000 to 1.5 million money-spending, sky-gazing visitors coming to experience the total eclipse in Arkansas.
Aftermath assessments placed the estimated headcount toward the lowest end of that range, far from the fever-induced expectations.
The state’s tourism tax receipts increased 8.1% in April, with counties in the path of total darkness averaging an 11% surge.
Regardless of the overhyped draw for tourism, the eclipse produced a nice demographic anomaly for the state park system. About 81% of the people who stayed at its campsites, cabins and lodges during the eclipse period were from out of state.
The celestial dance itself did not disappoint as early afternoon became dusk, temperatures fell a few degrees and animals briefly were befuddled.
The path of totality stretched between 116 and 118 miles wide as it moved on a 15-minute northeasterly trek through the state. The moon’s darkest shadow enshrouded all or parts of 53 counties, home to about 1.7 million Arkansans, as it traveled 320 miles from Texarkana to Piggott along its North American course.
Save your protective eyewear. A total solar eclipse is scheduled to next visit Arkansas on Aug. 12, 2045. That one will sweep across the state from northwest to southeast.

9. Supreme Court Shenanigans
Infighting among the seven justices at the Arkansas Supreme Court became public in 2024, shocking much of the state’s legal community as nearly all of the justices were referred to the Judicial Discipline & Disability Commission for investigation.
The contention started after Arkansas Business filed a Freedom of Information Act request in August with the Administrative Office of the Courts and the court’s Office of Professional Conduct. Arkansas Business asked for the correspondence of former OPC Executive Director Lisa Ballard and several others, including most notably Supreme Court Justice Courtney Rae Hudson.
Charlene Fleetwood, the acting director of the OPC, which handles attorney discipline matters, planned to tell Arkansas Business that the documents were exempt from disclosure. But five Supreme Court justices voted to overrule Fleetwood and have the material released.
Hudson then filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court to stop the release of certain documents. She later got an injunction blocking release of the documents.
As the case was pending, the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion dismissing Hudson’s case, mandating the release of Ballard’s emails to Hudson (but not Hudson’s emails to Ballard), and referring Hudson and her attorney, Justin Zachary of Little Rock, for ethics investigations.
The opinion says the unprecedented referrals were necessary due to “flagrant breaches of confidentiality and the public trust,” and the majority appeared most frustrated that Hudson entered a pair of exhibits containing Chief Justice John Dan Kemp’s emails.
A few days after the per curiam, Justice Karen Baker, who will replace Kemp as chief justice in January, issued a dissent that referred the entire majority to the JDDC for investigation.
Tensions on the court continued in early December after Baker entered the office of the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts when he wasn’t there. Hudson and Commerce Department Chief of Staff Allison Hatfield also were seen with Baker visiting the office of the director. But Hudson said she stood at the doorway.
The episode prompted reports to Supreme Court Police and a vote by the Supreme Court to implement new rules restricting access to Justice Building offices for Hatfield and Supreme Court justices.
10. Changes in the C-Suite
One of the state’s largest companies made a historic move when J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell promoted Shelley Simpson as its first woman CEO to replace John Roberts III, who moved into the company’s chairman role.
Simpson, who joined the company in 1994, had served in a variety of executive roles, including president, chief commercial officer and chief marketing officer. Roberts had been CEO since 2010 and replaced Kirk Thompson as chairman of the board.
At the Arkansas Department of Transportation, Lorie Tudor announced she would retire as director in January after five years. ARDOT named Jared Wiley as her replacement.
At Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, CFO John R. Tyson was suspended from his position after his June 13 arrest for DWI in Fayetteville. The company later named Curt Calaway as full-time CFO. John R. Tyson pleaded guilty to DWI and two other traffic violations and was fined $960 and ordered to serve 32 hours of community service.
Donald Bobbitt, president of the University of Arkansas System, said he would retire Jan. 15 after 13 years at the helm. Jay Silveria was named the new system president in November.
Arkansas State University System named a new president as well, choosing Brendan Kelly in September. Kelly replaced Chuck Welch, who stepped down after nearly 13 years on the job.
George Makris Jr., who served as CEO of Simmons Bank from 2014-2022, returned to the position after Bob Felhman announced he would retire. Felhman had replaced Makris in 2023.
At Encore Bank, CEO Chris Roberts resigned in May after five years but no word has been given since for the reason. Phillip Jett was named acting CEO. Roberts’ LinkedIn profile says he is now director of capital markets for Moses Tucker Partners in Little Rock.