December 2009/3

Capita hires two senior staff; Axis Global & Health appoints vice president, reinsurance; Ironshore promotes New York regional executive...

Transatlantic in $200mn share buyback authorisation; Atrium's rating affirmed; Arig's credit rating upgraded; First Scottish office for Travelers...

Lloyd's (re)insurer Brit's recently Netherlands domiciled holding company today made a EUR314m launch on the London Stock Exchange.

Willis has completed its leveraged deal to restructure the capital of Gras Savoye & Cie with the original shareholders of the French broker and private equity fund Astorg Partners

The value of fines handed down by UK financial services supervisor the FSA in 2009 jumped 53 percent on 2008 (to Dec 31) to a record-breaking £34.8m, according to London law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC).

Smaller brokers trading in London have been offered the chance to plug in to the Lloyd's Exchange and other electronic initiatives such as the electronic claims files (ECF) and electronic accounting and settlement (A&S)...

US law firm Hogan & Hartson LLP and UK firm Lovells LLP are set to merge, creating a combine that would rank third globally by number of lawyers, with about 2,500, and eighth by revenue, with as much as $1.8bn.

The newly-launched PERILS European windstorm industry loss index has been chosen as the trigger on two industry loss warranty (ILW) contracts.

London market back office provider Xchanging is axing 250 jobs and will offshore a further 230 positions by the middle of 2010 in a new efficiency drive.  

The proposed solvent scheme of arrangement for the Camomile Pool was granted leave to convene a meeting of creditors by the UK High Court last week.

The bitter battle between run-off groups Enstar and Randall &Quilter (R&Q) will be fought in the UK after the English Court of Appeal upheld a jurisdictional ruling last week in the dispute over the US legacy insurers Seaton Insurance Co and Stonewall Insurance Co.

Despite a relatively quiet 2009, the Insurance Futures Exchange (IFEX), which trades US wind future contracts on the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange, is preparing for a flurry of new trading participants in 2010, The Insurance Insider understands.

Despite reinsurance loss ratios of 300+ percent for the 2007-08 years, financial institutions (FI) professional indemnity rates may come under pressure in a year's time.

John Lapsley, the former driving force behind Benfield Corporate Risk (BCR)and more recently chairman of global energy & marine at Aon Specialty, has left "to pursue other interests", Aon confirmed last week.

The perennial dilemma of keeping both shareholders and rating agencies happy reappeared last week, with AM Best warning Bermudian (re)insurers about the potentially "grave" opportunity cost of prematurely returning capital in 2010.

Fledgling US and international broker Integro last week announced the acquisition of William E. Kelly Agency, Inc., a specialist high net worth personal lines and yacht agency based in Mamaroneck, New York.

The escalating cost of cover taken out for US financial services sector executives in the wake of the Wall Street crash of 2008 has started to ease, according to Aon Risk Services (ARS).

UK legal reformers have proposed an overhaul of disclosure laws to bolster the rights of insurance consumers, and are set to turn their attention to business insurance law next year.

Giving some succour to complaints this year that the soft market is being perpetuated by desperate (re)insurers keen to maintain market share was a report last week from Fitch Ratings.

The London insurance market effectively grew to more than £25bn in 2008 as it wrote more international and reinsurance business.

The satellite (re)insurance market is at its weakest since 2001 despite last week's major Orbcomm settlement.

The US property and casualty industry is now "solidly entrenched in the soft phase of the market cycle", and a material improvement in pricing "does not appear imminent", according to Fitch Ratings.

Aon Risk Services (ARS) saw off competition from rival Willis to buy FCC Global Insurance Services - the in-house broker for giant Spanish construction and infrastructure management firm Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC).

Consultancy Towers Perrin has warned that US tort costs are poised to escalate driven in part by errors and omissions (E&O) liabilities connected with the 2008 financial crisis