August 2012/4

Any rival bidder seeking to derail Validus's agreed $623mn acquisition of Flagstone Re will have to prepare for a fight, Validus CEO Ed Noonan told The Insurance Insider

There is unlikely to be any payout from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) due to the damage caused by Hurricane Isaac, the organisation has said.

Third Point Re - the 2012 reinsurance start-up capitalised with $780mn in private equity funding - is continuing to build its platform with a London office led by former Allied World executive Clare Himmer

AM Best has put its A- financial strength rating for SeaBright Insurance Holdings under review with negative implications following the news earlier this week that Enstar is to buy the US workers' compensation insurer

Expansionist Bermudian reinsurer Validus Holdings has reached an agreement to acquire Flagstone Re in a cash and share deal that values the company at 0.72x book value.

ANV's Lloyd's Syndicate 1861 is set to expand into the Accident & Health (A&H) market following the hire of a team from Travelers Syndicate Management.

London Stock Exchange-listed motor insurer Admiral increased pre-tax profits for the first six months of the year by 7 percent to £171.8mn, while growing turnover by 6 percent to £1.17bn

Onshore insured losses from Hurricane Isaac along the Gulf coast are expected to be in the range of $500mn to $1.5bn, according to modelling firm Eqecat.

Well regarded insurance equity analyst Chris Hitchings is set to join the boutique Lloyd's Names adviser, the Newton Follis Partnership as director of research, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Sue Langley, the most senior female executive at Lloyd's, is to leave the Corporation later this year.

Lloyd's (re)insurer Ark Syndicate Management has hired a property and general liability binding authority team from recently bought-out Lloyd's peer Omega, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

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Major 2012 P&C mergers and acquisitions...

Valuations for (re)insurers in The Insurance Insider's P&C universe

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

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance expects last year's floods in Thailand to result in gross claims of around 470bn yen ($6.0bn), according to an interview given to a Thai newspaper.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has been found liable for damages caused by one of the largest environmental disasters to hit the mainland US in recent years.

Bermudian run-off acquirer Enstar has continued its flurry of summer acquisitions with a deal to acquire US insurance group SeaBright Insurance Holdings in a transaction valued at $252mn.

The Missouri Department of Insurance has issued stronger reinsurance requirements for the state's mutual insurers after last year's Joplin tornado forced some into financial distress.

Federal support for the terrorism insurance market via backstop reinsurance must be maintained because the private sector cannot provide a competitive market, the Risk and Insurance Management Society (Rims) has warned.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has sold the remaining securities in the Maiden Lane III portfolio to book a total net profit of $17.7bn for taxpayers from its support for AIG and related facilities in its 2008 rescue.

BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole are conducting internal probes into dollar payments that could breach US sanctions, after Standard Chartered Bank received heavy fines from US regulators.

European reinsurers and London market firms have made steady gains on the stock markets this year but there is still potential for further gains, Barclays analysts Olivia Brindle and Andy Broadfield said in a recent note

The two Bermudian reinsurers that have posted the highest expense ratios this year also have the lowest price-to-book trading valuations, analysis by The Insurance Insider shows

(Re)insured loss estimates from the severe drought in the US range from $5bn to $20bn, reflecting the huge uncertainty that surrounds the fiendishly complicated loss.

With the fragile Florida homeowners' insurance market spared the wrath of Isaac, attention has very quickly turned to Gulf states further west and the potential impact on the offshore and onshore energy sector.

Pending New Zealand earthquake claims continue to hang over the heads of reinsurers, with major cedant Suncorp stating that it expects to have "well over half" of its claims settled by the middle of next year.

Typhoon Tembin defied forecasts of a potentially challenging Category 4 landfall on Taiwan last week, weakening to Category 1 and turning south before striking the island nation.

Losses from last year's flash-flooding in the Danish capital Copenhagen have deteriorated considerably beyond the $1bn mark previously reported.

New entrants to the UK solicitors' professional Indemnity (PI) market are likely to be attracted to the sector when the Assigned Risk Pool (ARP) closes next year, according to broker Marsh.

Flagstone Re's chief underwriting officer (CUO) for North American business, Joe Hooks, has left the company and will join rival Bermudian Platinum Underwriters, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

IAG will not merge its own vast cat reinsurance treaty with that of recent New Zealand acquisition AMI until 2015, the Australian insurer has said.

The growth of the alternative market has been a mixed blessing for traditional reinsurers, according to Fitch Ratings.

Apollo, the Lloyd's insurer named in honour of man's first moon landing, has paid tribute to Neil Armstrong, the pioneering astronaut who died over the weekend

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) plans to increase its reinsurance cover for 2013, although it remains to be seen how much will be allocated to traditional reinsurers rather than the capital markets, according to meeting documents posted on the organisation's website.

IAG has written off all of the goodwill in its UK business Equity Redstar, which senior financial sources suggest could lay the ground for a sale at a significant discount to book.