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December 2011/2

  • Pleural plaque sufferers will be able to seek compensation for their condition when new rules come into force this week in Northern Ireland.
  • German run-off acquirer Darag has confirmed a 70 percent growth in its administered loss reserves during 2011 and has struck a bullish tone on its projected growth for the year ahead.
  • Lehman Brothers has agreed a $417mn settlement with a raft of banking underwriters, taking the total pending settlements in class action lawsuits relating to the investment bank's collapse to $507mn.
  • Two US agencies appear set to clash in the courtroom after the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) again rejected demands that it compensate investors in Allen Stanford's alleged Ponzi scheme.
  • Halliburton has countered accusations that it allegedly destroyed evidence that implicated the services giant in some of the blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year.
  • Aon Benfield is facing another lawsuit over the alleged non-payment of loyalty fees to a Florida insurer.
  • UK (re)insurers have learned further details on how they may be permitted to plough ahead with their Solvency II implementation, despite the likely legislative delays, and adopt their internal model data as initially scheduled on 1 January 2013.
  • UK city minister Mark Hoban hailed the UK government's announcement last week on the reform of taxation of foreign profits, a move that has already been widely welcomed within London for improving the competitiveness of the market.
  • The European (re)insurance industry has become too hung up on the Pillar I capital aspects of the new Solvency II regime and has not paid enough attention to the risk management elements, Karel Van Hulle, head of the European Commission's insurance and pensions unit has said.
  • The issue of how Solvency II treats volatility and cyclicality, such as in the current Eurozone crisis, emerged as one of the major themes at the Association of British Insurers' conference
  • The European Commission (EC) has held high-level discussions about whether the sovereign debt of member countries should remain "risk-free" under Solvency II rules during the on-going Eurozone debt crisis.
  • Quoted Lloyd's insurer Amlin is turning to the cat bond market for the first time through its new Tramline Re offering, seeking aggregate reinsurance cover for peak US and European perils.
  • Two new cat bonds closed to strong demand last week, taking total 2011 sales to $4.5bn.
  • Sister title Inside FAC revealed last week that the niche space insurance market looks set to take a $40mn hit as a result of the failure of Russia's ill-fated Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which had been on a mission to Mars.
  • While most of the industry has its attention focused on Thailand, the US property market looks set to take one of the largest single risk losses of the year
  • Bermudian (re)insurers are well-placed to take advantage of a challenging but potentially rewarding renewal season, according to AM Best.
  • The fast growing US market for cyber risk and data privacy insurance products is expected to continue to expand in 2012 as a combination of increased regulation and high-profile incidents drives demand for cover.
  • Among the quartet of major Continental European reinsurers, Swiss Re is the best placed to capitalise on current market conditions, according to analysts at UBS.
  • Reinsurance capital continued to recover in the third quarter but still lags behind the level it started the year with as a result of the heavy toll of cat losses and lacklustre investment returns.
  • The industry's largest reinsurer Munich Re has disclosed that it expects to incur only EUR500mn ($670mn) of net claims for the flooding in Thailand.
  • US insurer Markel Corp revealed last week that it has agreed to buy Thomco, a privately held programme administrator that will write over $170mn in gross premiums this year.
  • US P&C giant Travelers revealed last week that it registered renewal rate increases of 5.8 percent on its business insurance accounts in November, as the improvement in the US rating environment intensified in the fourth quarter.
  • A deal between Omega and Haverford chairman Mark Byrne has become still less likely after Byrne went on holiday last week a fortnight before the Christmas break, The Insurance Insider revealed.
  • Lloyd's will try to return to growth in the UK commercial insurance market in 2012 after five years of stagnation, according to UK and Ireland regional manager Keith Stern.