February 2008/1

Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal has subpoenaed bond insurers as part of a probe into the fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Shares in AJ Gallagher & Co traded up last week after the company revealed it was divesting its reinsurance unit.

Rating agencies - those all-powerful arbiters of insurers' destinies - are getting restless and it is not just the monoliners who are in their sights.

The $250mn loss of an African telecommunications satellite at the end of last year was placed in the space insurance market by Willis, with cover understood to be led by Munich Re.

One of the largest providers of business to independent wholesale London market brokers is poised to launch an EC3 operation called Decus Insurance Brokers Ltd.