January 2007/1

Carbon Re, the Swiss reinsurer of greenhouse gas emissions-related projects, has launched Carbon Compliance Guarantee Insurance Syndicate (CCGI) to indemnify companies’ Certified Emission Reductions.

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).

HCC Insurance Holdings reported a record third quarter in its delayed earnings report last week and concluded its review of the company’s option granting practices that led to the shock departure of the insurer’s founding chief executive Stephen Way last

US insurer Chubb Corp became the latest company to settle with US regulators, on 28 December, and pledged to end the paying of contingent commissions to brokers at the end of 2006.

In a record year for securitisation in the sector, French reinsurer SCOR became the latest (re)insurer to issue a catastrophe bond, with its EUR120mn Atlas III transaction to cover against European windstorm and Japanese earthquake losses in late December

The independent London market broker Tyser & Co has reshuffled its management team and is in the throes of restructuring its shareholdings as a number of senior executives prepare to retire.

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.

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

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.

Ratings agency AM Best downgraded the financial strength rating of General Insurance Corp of India to A- from A on 18 December.

Swiss giant Zurich Financial Services Group (ZFS) and lead underwriters UBS AG and Merrill Lynch International have been cleared by a US federal judge of securities-fraud claims following the spin-off of reinsurance subsidiary Converium Holding AG in 2001