January 2008/3

UK regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has appointed Sally Dewar as new managing director of wholesale.

Risk modelling firm Risk Management Services (RMS) is launching a series of natural catastrophe indices for US wind and quake, and European windstorm under the banner Paradex.

Bermudian reinsurer White Mountains Re has cancelled its quota share arrangement with Helicon Re and Olympus Re for the 2008 year as a result of the softening property cat market.

The airline market is "likely to have made a loss" last year with claims outweighing premiums, according to the latest data from Aon Aviation.

Derivatives platform Insurance Futures Exchange Services (IFEX) which began trading in US hurricanes as futures contracts last September, now has cumulative trading volumes totalling more than $31mn of (re)insurance limit, equivalent to 3,100 lots, it rev

Ron Sandler, the chairman of Bermudian insurer Ironshore Ltd and the former chief executive of Lloyd's, is poised to run the stricken UK bank, Northern Rock, if it is nationalised.

Aquiline Capital Partners could lose as much as 95 percent of its investment in its Dublin-based Structured Credit Company (SCC), as the credit default underwriting firm became another victim of the meltdown in the debt markets.

Ratings agency Moody's has downgraded the senior secured debt ratings of giant bond insurer MBIA Inc, on the back of "various financial developments and capital initiatives" recently announced by the firm.

Countrywide Financial, one of the US's largest mortgage lenders heavily affected by the sub-prime lending debacle, has been purchased by Bank of America in a $4bn all-share deal.

Lloyd's insurer Amlin plc has seen its premium income drop 7 percent so far at the January renewals reflecting weaker market conditions.

BMS, the independent London market broker, has confirmed the resignation of its CEO, John Spencer.

Stockbroker Equity Development are upbeat about Randall & Quilter Investment Holdings (R&Q)'s prospects following its recent initial public offering and approval to establish a Bermudian reinsurer, R&Q Re (Bermuda) Ltd.