January 2009/4

US run-off specialist Citadel Risk Management has acquired "substantially all"of broking group AJ Gallagher's reinsurance run-off portfolio in a move which the Citadel group described as an "opportunity to create a runoff sector for the reinsurance interm

AJ Gallagher is to acquire the renewal rights from a Liberty Mutual middle-market commercial property/casualty business in a deal potentially worth nine figures.

Shipowners face a hike in premiums next month after the International Group of P&I Clubs (IG) unveiled general increases on all classes of vessel in its excess of loss reinsurance renewal...

The drag of Transatlantic Holdings' relationship with majority shareholder American International Group (AIG) was evident in the downgrade of its core operating companies' financial strength ratings from AA- to A+ by Standard & Poor's last week.

Max Capital has revealed a negative return of approximately 20 percent on its alternative investment portfolio for 2008, prompting unrealised asset write-downs of around $233mn and a full-year loss and negative net operating return on average shareholders

US insurer Navigators Group is pulling its energy, engineering and construction risks together into a new business unit, Navigators Technical Risk (NavTech).

Creditors of collapsed Icelandic banks have brought legal actions in the UK High Court totalling £360mn to date.

Bermudian-based PartnerRe recorded a 12 percent cancellation rate during its key 1 January renewals; a figure which it said was the lowest seen over the last five years and reflects "a reversal of the trend of increasing client retentions."

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has traded $30mn notional limit of its CHI hurricane cat futures in the first weeks of 2009, as reinsurance broker Carvill withdraws from the initiative which it founded in 2007.

Bermudian (re)insurer Validus Holdings Ltd joined the crowd of underwriters increasing their loss estimates from Hurricane Ike as the harsh impact of the September 2008 storm continues to mount.

European insurers' pure solvency ratios are "extremely stretched" and 2009 will be an acutely difficult year for some of Europe's largest market participants, particularly in the life sector...

Adding the Madoff scandal to the list of litigation-spawning incidents which have caused a myriad of unprecedented dislocations in the financial system could be "the straw that breaks the camel’s back" for the professional and managerial indemnity markets