December 2008/4

Brazilian authorities have granted three more licenses to foreign reinsurers looking to tap into the country's recently opened reinsurance market.

Troubled Australian insurer Insurance Australia Group (IAG) completed a partial withdrawal from the UK personal lines market with the sale of its Equity broking operations to UK High Street broker Swinton...

Libero Ventures, the capital markets convergence firm formed in late 2007, has acquired the shareholding previously owned by Lehman Brothers from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrators of the failed investment bank's European operations.

Christen Schnor, HSBC's head of insurance in the UK, Turkey, the Middle East and Malta was found hanged in a hotel room on 21 December after apparently committing suicide.

Amlin plc has successfully raised the £50mn in third party capital from Names it targeted for its new quota share syndicate.

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.

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...

The US property & casualty industry slumped to a $9.9bn third quarter net loss driven by underwriting losses and heavy investment write-downs.

Insured catastrophe losses this year are estimated to have hit $50bn, making 2008 the second costliest on record, according to research from Swiss Re.

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.

Bermudian Everest Re faces the prospect of a ratings downgrade in the first quarter of 2009 after Standard & Poor's (S&P) moved on Friday (19 December) to place the reinsurer's counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on CreditWatch with negativ

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.