Issues

JLT Re's renewals commentary underlines how stubbornly high levels of capital are continuing to keep meaningful rate rises out of the grasp of reinsurers in most lines.

Richard Trubshaw of Managing Agency Partners has been voted the top US property catastrophe underwriter, according to The Insurance Insider's US property cat rankings for 2018.

As the Q4 2017 earnings season begins, early signs suggest insured damage caused by last year's Californian wildfires is on the rise.

The sample size may not have been large, but the handful of results filings from US carriers and brokers last week provided further evidence that the commercial insurance market is beginning to see upward - albeit moderate - movement on rates.

Insurance-linked securities managers have reduced their estimates of losses taken from the August and September hurricanes, according to the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index.

A group of sidecars tracked by sister title Trading Risk lost 10.5 percent of investors' capital on average after Harvey, Irma and Maria, according to regulatory filings from the Stone Ridge and Pioneer Interval funds.

Run-off and legacy management is rising up boardroom agendas to become a medium-to-high priority for firms, research from PwC has found.

Canadian pharmaceutical company Valeant is suing its insurers as it seeks to claw back more than $325mn in costs, as well as unspecified damages, arising from class actions following its attempted acquisition of drug firm Allergan.

Uncertainty around the Ogden rate continued to push up UK motor excess-of-loss (XoL) renewal rates at 1 January, albeit with substantial divergence across programme layers.

The implosion of Carillion is likely to add further losses to UK trade credit underwriters already reeling from the collapse of wholesaler Palmer & Harvey and airline Monarch.

Continued excess capacity and the overall resilience of the market meant most 1 January accounts renewed flat on a risk-adjusted basis, according to Guy Carpenter.

Validus looks set to become a US taxpayer after its $5.6bn acquisition by AIG, with the buyer's management citing recent tax reforms that may also shape future deals involving the purchase of overseas carriers by US companies.