August 2011/5

Willis Capital Markets & Advisory managing director Bill Dubinsky estimated trading on the secondary cat bond market reached about $100mn in volume last week as Hurricane Irene bore down on the US, on top of the livecat activity.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Company has filed a lawsuit against the former directors and management of failed bank Silverton and its insurers.

Expansive run-off acquirer Catalina has bought a US home warranty company that has businesses in Colorado and Hawaii with combined assets of $168.4mn.

Former executives of failed bank Lehman Brothers have petitioned a US bankruptcy court to authorise insurers to release funds to pay a proposed a $90mn settlement.

A US judge has denied Liberty Mutual the right to appeal against the courts' preliminary approval of a $450mn class action settlement over claims that AIG deliberately misstated the amount of workers' compensation premium that it wrote.

Only a handful of livecat industry loss warranty (ILW) deals were conducted last week as Irene ploughed through the Caribbean and on to become the first hurricane to make landfall in the US in three years.

The full impact of catastrophe losses has caused the US property casualty (re)insurance sector's combined ratio to deteriorate to 108.5 percent in the first half of 2011, up from 97.2 percent in the prior-year period, according to analysis by Fitch Ratings.

US P&C insurers are still maintaining adequate loss reserves even though their level has deteriorated moderately, according to Fitch Ratings.

The drying up of reserve releases at top-performing UK motor insurer Admiral last week provided market watchers with a chastening reminder that they are all still vulnerable to claims inflation as the sector continues to struggle to return to the black.

The "big three" primary commercial insurers in Australasia retained less than $1.5bn of combined losses from the string of Antipodean disasters that cost the (re)insurance industry an estimated $21bn, their recent results show.

The loss of a communications satellite following the partial launch failure of a Russian-made rocket on the 16 August is likely to cost the international space insurance market up to $300mn.

New Zealand's Earthquake Commission (EQC) has run through its $NZ2.5bn ($2bn) reinsurance cover for claims from the February Christchurch earthquakes, according to the country's finance minister Bill English.

Forecaster Weather Services International (WSI) is now predicting that an extra three named storms will strike in the 2011 US hurricane season, taking its total forecast to 18 storms, after an active start.

Hardy CEO Barbara Merry has acknowledged that the company will need additional capital to support its underwriting in 2012, but said that it has a number of different options.

Hurricane Irene did not trigger any payments from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), the organisation said, despite the storm causing damage of up to $1bn in the region.

Mammoth Japanese cooperative Zenkyoren has told reinsurers unofficially that its initial 650bn yen ($8.5bn) claim for March's Great Tohoku Earthquake will have to rise to cover its mounting losses.

Berkshire deposits $5bn with Bank of America; Japanese big three survive sovereign downgrade; Special vehicles boost Bermuda start-up numbers in H1; Willis develops nuclear business interruption cover; Travelers London reshuffles marine team; Argo expands its surety capacity in the US

Insurance companies will retain most of the claims from Hurricane Irene as losses are not expected to be high enough to activate the biggest writers' excess of loss programmes, Standard & Poor's (S&P) has said.

The heavily indebted National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is likely to be hit hard by Hurricane Irene.

Hurricane Irene spared (re)insurers further significant pain after a record first half for catastrophes, but also denied them the potential fuse for more widespread price rises.

After Davis Select Advisors announced last week that it would reject the merger terms offered by Allied World for Transatlantic, the casualty specialist has made a fresh assault on the proposals of its rivals, dismissing Berkshire Hathaway's bid as an "opportunistic attempt" to acquire Transatlantic at a discount.

Embattled Lloyd's (re)insurer Omega Insurance Holdings is set to halt underwriting third-party business from its Bermuda-based Omega Specialty operation, The Insurance Insider understands.

Ask any reinsurance CEO what they would like for Christmas and usually after a little deliberation (and a few jokes about private jets and new yachts) most will come up with the classic request: "A major market loss that I haven't had to pay for myself."

Reinsurers are expected to emerge largely unscathed after Hurricane Irene failed to come close to the major industry event predicted last week, with AIR Worldwide estimating insured losses of $3bn to $6bn in the US.