January 2015/2

JLT has warned the upcoming energy insurance renewal season will be the most "brutally Darwinian" since 1999 as the depressed oil price causes a retraction in demand just as capacity reaches a new high.

AmTrust's $150mn share offering earlier this month is likely to stir further activity from short sellers seeking to paint a picture of a company facing a capital shortage

US open market property bellwether Verizon renewed on 1 January with double-digit rate reductions despite its value growing by 6 percent, market sources told sister publication Inside FAC.

Validus subsidiary AlphaCat Managers has raised $409mn of new capital for its ILS funds and renewed its sidecar, AlphaCat 2015, at $155mn.

Guy Carpenter has estimated that the convergence market grew by a third in 2014, rising from $45bn to $60bn in size.

The great unanswered - and probably unanswerable - question of this renewal is whether reinsurers are at a painful point in the cycle or at the start of a new unwelcoming epoch.

Retro giant CatCo has bought a $175mn industry loss warranty (ILW) to cover US and non-US exposures on its book of business, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

The major renewal participants attempted publicly - and to a lesser degree privately - to put their spin on events.

Despite the continued price softening at 1 January, there was evidence of reinsurer resolve on terms and conditions (T&Cs), perhaps implying that carriers have learnt the lessons of the late 1990s.

Colin Mayo has taken his US commercial property underwriting team from Rockhill Insurance Company to launch a new business with Ariel Re, The Insurance Insider can reveal

There was some evidence of additional cover purchased at 1 January as reinsurers reinvested the budget freed up by price softening.

The agreed £2.8bn ($4.2bn) deal to combine global specialty (re)insurance powerhouses XL and Catlin was driven by a desire to position for structural change in the sector by being a first mover in M&A