April 2013/5

Loss adjusters have predicted that a power plant explosion at Georgia Power's Plant Bowen in Bartow County, north-west of Atlanta, will cost insurers $75mn.

Chubb and Chartis wrote two large lines on the $180mn News Corporation directors' and officers' (D&O) programme, which is paying a $139mn loss after a settlement was reached in a long-running shareholders' action over the UK phone hacking scandal.

The relative attractiveness of the (re)insurance sector to investors, combined with Brazil's high growth economy and immature financial services sector, has fuelled the industry's latest IPO.

Privately owned Brit Insurance has held a road show with major investors to familiarise them with the story of the turnaround Lloyd's carrier.

TigerRisk continues to build out its Florida portfolio after landing depop insurer Safe Harbor as part of the property cat account for the expansive Ocean Harbor Insurance Group (OHIG).

The expansionist Qatari firm Q-Re has hired former Sagicor at Lloyd's underwriter Luke Roden to write a book of property catastrophe reinsurance out of Bermuda, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Japanese earthquake went from being Swiss Re's fourth-largest exposure to its top risk after the Tohoku earthquake.

The US excess and surplus (E&S) market is anxious about the prospect of new capacity from Berkshire Hathaway choking the rate increases that the sector is currently enjoying.

A storming week's trading for AIG, which was up 10 percent at one point, was derailed on Friday (26 April) following this publication's revelation that it had lost a quadrumvirate of key staff to Berkshire Hathaway.

Ajit Jain's dramatic transformation from selective writer of distressed reinsurance deals to leviathan-sized premium hunter was again in evidence last week as he took the core senior staff to launch a US excess & surplus lines platform in one swoop from AIG.

R&Q raises £25mn; Munich Re on target; GC Securities hires from rival; Admiral down; D&O insurers hit by News Corp settlement; Swiss Re targets Brazil; New chair for Willis; AIG dips; Asia prices up; Aspen in $275mn re-fi

Berkshire Hathaway is "free-riding" on the 325-year-old Lloyd's franchise and professional expertise with its "unseemly" Aon quota-share deal, Validus CEO Ed Noonan said on the company's earnings call.