February 2007/4

Mid-tier North American broker Hub International Ltd has been acquired by funds advised by Apax Partners and Morgan Stanley Principal Investments in a $1.8bn deal which is further proof of private equity’s interest in the insurance broking sector.

Australian-headquartered insurer QBE has appointed John Neal to the newly created position of chief operating officer for its European Operations.

Fuelled by its acquisition of GE Insurance Solutions (GEIS), Swiss Re reported a 14 percent increase in business at the January renewals, the equivalent of SFr1.3bn.

European insurance giant Zurich Financial Services Group (ZFS) revealed its losses from European Windstorm Kyrill will not exceed $150mn.

Bermudian reinsurer Aspen Insurance Holdings has strengthened it aviation and specialty reinsurance with the creation of the post of head of division.

UK-listed broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc (JLT) received a £14.2mn present last week following the merger of Continental brokers SIACI and Assurances et Conseils Saint-Honoré (ACSH).

Arab Insurance Group (Arig) posted profits of $30.4mn for 2006, down from the $48.2mn it recorded the year before. However, the company said it had actually exceeded the 2005 result once exceptional items of $10.4mn and $28.9mn were removed...

US insurer CNA Financial Corp saw profits rise over 400 percent last year to $1.1bn, compared to $264mn in hurricane-hit 2005. The turnaround was even more marked in the fourth quarter of the year with CNA bouncing back from a deficit of $217mn...

Bermudian catastrophe reinsurer Montpelier Re said the “favourable pricing environment” was amongst the factors driving it to a profit of $303mn, or $3.25 per share, last year, against a loss of $753mn, or $10.49 per share, in 2005.

Strong growth at subsidiaries Guy Carpenter, Kroll and Mercer pushed Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc (MMC) to book fourth quarter 2006 revenue growth of 9 percent to $3.1bn, as it reported consolidated net income of $226mn for the period.

Another Bermudian (re)insurer to bounce back from 2005 was Arch Capital, which almost tripled its full-year profits from $256.4mn then to $692.6mn for last year.

If the recent Florida insurance legislation had been passed in a foreign country, US (re)insurers would be asking the State Department to intervene, according to Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, chairman and CEO of CV Starr & Co.