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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Former CEO of General Re Ronald Ferguson was sentenced to a two year custodial sentence for his role in the $500mn finite reinsurance fraud involving the Berkshire Hathaway owned reinsurer and American International Group (AIG).

UK quoted Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has announced the launch of a new treaty reinsurance operation in Bermuda through JLT Re, its trading division.

European insurance giant Allianz has called an early redemption of its pioneering $150mn Blue Wings cat bond, just eighteen months into its more than four year term.

A Financial Services Authority (FSA) decision not to mandate broker commission disclosure in the UK wholesale market has been met by a polarised reaction from trade associations representing UK brokers and large buyers of insurance.