December 2008/4

Troubled insurer AIG intends to merge two units of its major Asian life insurance entity American International Assurance Co Ltd (AIA) and list the restructured company in Hong Kong, according to reports.

Independent Lloyd's broker Tyser & Co has acquired a specialist treaty reinsurance broking team from RK Carvill & Co, the long-established reinsurance broker which announced it was closing down its operations earlier this month.

Bermuda-domiciled While Mountains' reinsurance arm, White Mountains Re, has announced the retirement of CFO Chuck Chokel and a subsequent management reshuffle.

French-headquartered reinsurer SCOR has been granted a Takaful reinsurance licence and a conventional reinsurance licence for its SCOR Global Life branch on the Malaysian offshore domicile of Labuan.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has warned of soaring European corporate defaults in 2009 as the financial services sector heads for a sombre year.

The UK's Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has abandoned plans for a merger with the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIF) after previously undisclosed revenue losses of A$1.5mn came to light.

AXA Group's US subsidiary, AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co, has cut around 200 jobs, the equivalent of four percent of its US workforce, as it feels the strain of troubled global equity markets on its securities-based retirement products.

European (re)insurance trade body CEA has outlined its opposition to proposals to changes in US tax law in a letter to the US Senate Finance Committee and the Committee on Ways and Means for the US House of Representatives.

Shares in troubled Bermudian (re)insurer XL Capital Ltd rallied almost 30 percent last week on the back of rumours that Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway was considering a bid for the company.

Restructuring continued apace at American International Group (AIG) last week. Ahead of its sale of Hartford Steam Boiler to Munich Re [see story 1] the troubled insurer announced the completion of the sale of $39.3bn face value...

Munich Re’s Lloyd’s operation Beaufort Underwriting Agency Ltd has received approval for its new, wholly-aligned syndicate to begin underwriting for the 2009 year of account, as predicted by The Insurance Insider in September.

Class action law firm Milberg LLP - long the scourge of D&O insurers - has wasted little time in marking out the ground for what looks set to be a morass of litigation following the alleged $50bn fraud by Wall Street trader Bernard Madoff.