February 2014/4

AmTrust Financial Services CEO Barry Zyskind is in line to receive a share bonus worth approximately $10mn for 2013, despite a recent furore surrounding sharply negative research from short research firm GeoInvesting.

Heavily shorted Nasdaq-listed insurer AmTrust has changed the way it accounts for ceding commissions from outwards quota share reinsurance deals, increasing its combined ratio and narrowing its apparent advantage over peers.

It seems likely that even the reinsurers of the National Farmers Union Mutual (NFU) will escape without a loss from the recent UK floods, The Insurance Insider understands.

Allstate, the first major 1 June cat account to come to market, has submitted a structure for quoting to reinsurers that would drop the first event retention to $500mn, The Insurance Insider understands.

Hiscox has a 75 percent quota share deal on its cat reinsurance book in Lloyd's and Bermuda for 2014 that means it currently hands on premium attaching to $3.5bn of limit to its partners.

Five directors of Lloyd's insurer Beazley Group plc sold the bulk of a £4.4mn ($7.3mn) award of shares and share options they received under a management incentive scheme, a regulatory filing this month demonstrates.

CNA replaced Barbara Merry, the long-serving chief executive at listed Lloyd's carrier Hardy Underwriting, last week.

The London-listed collateralised retro writer CatCo has hired the alternative reinsurance duo Charlie Vaughan and Rick Montgomerie as directors of underwriting.

JP Morgan insurance boss; Cyber launch; Skuld premiums up; Mapfre restored; BMS appoints; Allstate losses; AIG Europe affirmed; National Interstate takeover; Meadowbrook review; Kiln investors; Besso hires; Willis persuades; Greenlight Re rebounds; Brit returns; UK floods manageable; Limited draw-down

The ultimate expected loss on the CNA asbestos portfolio that Berkshire Hathaway reinsured in 2010 for $2.2bn deteriorated by $479mn in the fourth quarter and will now leave the company and its reinsurance head Ajit Jain with a loss.

For an industry that promises to remove the uncertainties of the future in return for a fee, our sector is remarkably bad at predicting even the shortest distance in advance

RSA's share price closed down 3.7 percent at 97.5p today (24 February) as the group's shareholders prepared themselves for the first major rights issue by a UK-headquartered insurer in over 10 years.