August 2013/2

As the market digests new CEO John Charman's bold management overhaul at Endurance, there are already early signs that the Bermudian (re)insurer's share price has started to outperform.

News of bigger-than-expected claims, weak pricing trends and tumbling investment returns combined to take the shine off the big European reinsurers' quarterly results over the last two weeks, triggering an unenthusiastic shareholder reaction.

The underwriting performance of the (re)insurers in our "Bermuda" universe of publicly quoted P&C (re)insurers improved in the first six months of 2013 compared to the corresponding period in 2012, despite a heavier year-on-year catastrophe burden in the second quarter.

Share repurchases at P&C (re)insurers in our Bermuda cohort continued to accelerate in the second quarter of 2013 amid a dearth of adequately profitable opportunities to deploy underwriting capital.

The top line of The Insurance Insider's Bermuda composite has grown by 8.6 percent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2012, taking total gross written premium (GWP) to $35.5bn.

The Canadian federal and provincial government will be forced to foot a large part of the bill from the train disaster in Lac-Mégantic, which is expected to top C$1bn mainly from environmental impact losses, according to Quebec tort law professor Daniel Gardner.

The spiralling wreck removal costs for the Costa Concordia prompted many (re)insurers to increase their loss estimates for the disaster in the second quarter.

As the reporting season begins to wind down catastrophe losses now total $6.8bn for the second quarter, according to The Insurance Insider’s Data Room.

Lancashire's surprise £266mn takeover of Lloyd's-based rival Cathedral, unveiled on 7 August, has stirred speculation that the London-listed (re)insurer may be quietly abandoning the business model that has made it one of the sector's stock market stars since it launched in 2005.

Forecasters have lowered their outlook for the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season but it is still expected to be above average.

JLT shares hit an all-time high closing price of 921.5p last Thursday (8 August) after the UK-based broker reported strong revenue growth and profits that beat analyst consensus.

The current accounting standards for London-listed (re)insurers do not present an accurate picture of financial performance due to the distortions created by mark-to-market changes on bond portfolios, Stephen Catlin has told The Insurance Insider.