January 2007/1

UK motor insurer Admiral has extended its long-term reinsurance agreement with Munich Re subsidiary Great Lakes Reinsurance.

Aon Holdings BV announced that it has successfully completed the acquisition of the remaining 51 percent of the shares of Moscow-based Aon Rus LLC today (2 January).

“Two large claims” incurred in January 2005 led to AM Best double downgrading Primary Group’s Irish insurance subsidiary Primary Insurance Company Ltd (PICL) before the Christmas break.

Munich Re regained its targeted AA- rating from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) last month with the rating agency upgrading the German giant from A+ and assigning a stable outlook on 22 December.

Paris Re Holdings has become the latest reinsurer to launch a sidecar-style vehicle with the establishment of Triomphe Re, a $185mn Bermuda domiciled Class 3 reinsurer last month.

Analysts have broadly welcomed reports that Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) has agreed to sell subsidiary Putnam Investments to Power Corp of Canada for $3.9bn.

Lloyd’s first sidecar syndicate, Managing Agency Partners Ltd’s (MAP) Syndicate 6103, began underwriting last month after successfully raising £43mn in capital from Lloyd’s Names.

A buyers’ market has seen plummeting airline rates with German airline Lufthansa leading the way, Insider Week can reveal.

Mitchell Blaser, the former chief financial officer of Swiss Re’s Americas division, has formed a triumvirate of senior industry executives behind the $1bn start-up insurer, Ironshore Ltd.

Apparent tensions between Catlin Group and AM Best re-surfaced last month with the rating agency confirming on 20 December that it would maintain its review with negative implications of the insurer’s rating despite the unconditional declaration of its ta

After last year’s record catastrophe insured losses of more than $100bn, the benign conditions of 2005 look like costing the (re)insurance industry just $15bn in losses from natural and man-made catastrophes, according to preliminary figures from Swiss Re

US commercial insurers are on course for their best financial performance in nearly 20 years, according to figures from the ISO and Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) covering the first nine months of 2006.