January 2005/5

The world’s fourth largest insurance intermediary, Arthur J Gallagher & Co, has merged its reinsurance units and rebranded them as Gallagher RE, the company announced last week.

Marsh & McLennan announced that it has restructured its consulting arm Mercer Inc into two units and that its president Peter Coster would retire after spending 40 years at the firm.

The Indian Ocean tsunami will probably cost Lloyd’s insurers less than $500mn, the Corporation’s chairman has claimed.

UK insurer Royal and Sun Alliance (R&SA) is being sued by car manufacturer General Motors Corp for failing to pay millions of dollars of asbestos claims, it emerged last week.

The Markel Corporation has brushed aside 2004’s long list of natural catastrophes by reporting record profits for the year.

Fourth quarter 2004 figures from The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers (CIAB) reveal a climate of significant softening of rates in the commercial property casualty market.

Paris headquartered insurer Axa has reported a modest increase in its 2004 sales, helped by a recovery in American life and savings revenues and premium gains from its P&C business.

US insurer The Hartford has raised its earnings expectations on the back of an optimistic outlook for the rating environment in 2005.

Andrew Wallas, the chairman of London market broker Glencairn Ltd, has left the company, Insider Week can reveal.

Marsh & McLennan’s private equity arm MMC Capital closed its London office on Friday but there is still no announcement on whether the unit will be spun-off.

As exclusively revealed in a special report from The Insurance Insider last Thursday (27 January), Britain’s second largest listed insurance company Prudential plc has replaced its insurance broker Marsh Ltd with its UK rival Aon.

World’s largest broker Marsh has today (31 January 2005) announced an $850mn settlement with Eliot Spitzer to end the New York attorney general’s probe into so-called contingent commissions and bid rigging.