April 2013/3

AM Best has removed Canopius US Insurance from under review and affirmed its A- financial strength rating and a- issuer credit rating.

A federal judge has fully approved Bank of America\'s $2.4bn settlement with investors who claimed the firm\'s $50bn merger with the ailing investment bank Merrill Lynch was "reckless" and amounted to a "cover up".

A US federal court has approved a $115mn settlement over allegations that investors were misled by former American International Group (AIG) executives.

Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong last week asked a Texas court to throw out sports prize insurer SCA Promotions' $12mn suit against him, arguing that the allegations are time-barred.

US President Barack Obama has proposed a series of reforms to the federal government-backed crop insurance programme in a bid to save $11.7bn over the next 10 years.

Tax breaks for foreign (re)insurers have been put back on the political agenda as part of US president Barack Obama's proposed 2014 budget.

The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) lifted the size of its planned cat bond to $250mn from a $100mn target after pricing guidance on the deal dropped below the initial lower-end indications, sources said.

The collateralised reinsurance and retrocession markets have seen the greatest growth in the alternative reinsurance space over the past nine months, according to estimates from Guy Carpenter.

The somewhat clunky term "decoupling" is becoming increasingly popular in the insurance linked securities (ILS) market as an explanation for the mismatch in pricing cat risk between alternative and mainstream reinsurance underwriters.

The chief executives of quoted London market (re)insurers were rewarded with substantial pay rises last year after their companies reported strong 2012 results, data compiled by The Insurance Insider shows.

There is an old bar room joke that goes something like this: if at first you don't succeed, sky diving is not for you.

It has proven a somewhat inexact science of late, but experts are again warning reinsurers to expect an above-average hurricane season due to unusually warm temperatures in the tropical Atlantic over the last several months.

Analysts at Macquarie have downgraded several US-listed reinsurance stocks, citing their prospects for 2013 ahead of a "difficult" US wind renewal that is coming under increasing pressure from excess supply of both traditional and non-traditional capacity.

The extent of Berkshire Hathaway's exposure to Italian medical-malpractice is far higher than previously understood given that it wrote an 80 percent quota-share reinsurance of AmTrust's vast book of business for two years before entering the primary market itself.

Weekly share price movements and key data on The Insurance Insider's universe of P&C (re)insurers and brokers

Unrated Latvian insurer Balva, a major player in the UK solicitors' professional indemnity (PI) market, has been barred from writing new UK policies by its local regulator, the Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest state budget has confirmed proposals to cover the rising liabilities of members of failed workers' compensation trusts by facilitating the issuance of bonds.

Workers' compensation rates are on a solid upward path, which should help maintain P&C pricing momentum throughout the rest of 2013, global broker Willis predicted in its "Marketplace Realities" spring 2013 update.

Ark Insurance Holdings, the group holding company that owns the integrated Lloyd's (re)insurer, has reported a 2012 pre-tax profit of $46mn.

The London & International Insurance Brokers' Association (LIIBA) will not be contributing executive input at the first stage of work for Central Services Refresh (CSR), the rebranded Project Darwin modernisation process.

Following the departure of interim active underwriter Phil Hancock in the final quarter of 2012, ProSight Syndicate 1110 has now stopped writing the business that was on the books when the erstwhile TSM syndicate was acquired on 1 January 2012, with the exception of a number of niche energy accounts.

Allied World's Lloyd's platform is building a book of business that looks to be the living embodiment of the Corporation's Vision 2025 plan to target emerging markets growth.

The near-legendary QBE Syndicate 386 was one of the few Lloyd's carriers to report a year-on-year drop in profit for 2012 as its underwriting performance deteriorated.

HSBC Insurance (Asia) has agreed to sell its Macau-based general insurance business to QBE Insurance (International), subject to regulatory approval.