February 2007/1

Lloyd's insurer Heritage Underwriting reported a 31 percent increase in its written premium last year.

Lawrence Hamermesh, a law professor appointed by the Delaware insurance commissioner to examine whether the state should approve Royal & Sun Alliance’s (R&SA) plans to spin-off its run-off US subsidiary...

"Class of 2005" member Lancashire Holdings has reassured investors that it would not be hit by the controversial increase in the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund.

Numis Securities has lowered its earnings forecast on the UK-headquartered broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc and reiterated its sell recommendation on the company's stock.

Traditionally, the (re)insurance industry has seen run-off as a solution to its distressed and discontinued books of business.

London market bodies reported an "electronic processing surge" and claimed that a quarter of all the market’s premium transactions could be handled by the end of February.

Converium Holdings' chief executive Inga Beale has continued to re-shape the reinsurer's management with the appointment of Benfield Group’s Jakob Eugster.

A US federal judge has ruled that former Gen Re and American International Group (AIG) execs accused of improper finite reinsurance transactions will have to face fraud charges.

Bermudian ACE Ltd became the latest (re)insurer to benefit from an unexpectedly benign catastrophe environment as it revealed record 2006 operating income of $2.35bn, last week.

When the reinsurance brokers published their 1/1 renewals analysis last month the general consensus was of flat-to-downward rating pressures outside of US catastrophe-exposed business, so there should have been little surprise when Munich Re...

A series of devastating tornadoes ripped through Central Florida last Friday (2 February), killing twenty people and cutting power supplies to more than 40,000 residents.

Last week's launch explosion involving an SES New Skies Boeing-built satellite on a Sea Launch platform in the Pacific is likely to cost space insurers $256mn, with potential for further claims to hit the marine market.

Hannover Re is set to enter a landmark financial transaction that will lay off credit risk on its reinsurance recoverables to the capital markets, a move first revealed by The Insurance Insider in January last year.

Reinsurance giant Swiss Re confirmed it has sold its landmark London offices, 30 St Mary Axe, to the property firm IVG Immobilien AG for £600mn under a "sale-and-leaseback" arrangement.

US insurer State Farm Fire & Casualty Co has had the $2.5mn jury award of punitive damages it was ordered to pay to a couple in Mississippi for a Katrina claim reduced to $1mn.

German reinsurer Cologne Re was hit by the exit of two board members, Arno Junke and Rainer Isringhaus, last week.

US reinsurer Transatlantic Re has reported that the absence of significant catastrophe losses drove it to its "most successful year ever" in 2006.

Broker PWS Holdings is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over an alleged $1.6mn Costa Rican reinsurance fraud.

Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc (MMC) will use part of the $3.9bn proceeds from the sale of asset management arm Putnam Investments for acquisitions, according to president and CEO Michael Cherkasky.

The industry continues to count the cost of last month's Windstorm Kyrill with ratings agency Moody's estimating insured losses of up to EUR8bn across Europe.

Bermudian reinsurer White Mountains Re said its net written premiums were down for the final quarter of last year, and flat for the year, as improving rates for catastrophe exposed lines off-set falling markets elsewhere.