July 2005/4

After a flurry of excitement in the Lloyd's listed sector, advocates of consolidation among the market's players were dealt a blow this month, with the news that Amlin has walked away from its proposed bid for fellow Lloyd's vehicle Chaucer.

The Lloyd's Franchise Board has been granted more time to consider raising the Central Fund levies next year in a move which may prove unpopular with the insurers who trade in the market.

ACE's Bermudian contemporary XL continues to suffer its own legacy issues, unveiling a further boost to its US reinsurance reserves this month, which included a $64.7mn pre-tax increase for its workers' compensation reserves.

Leading Lloyd's IT provider Room Solutions has blamed slow take up of a major new investment project for contributing to a £1mn loss for the year.

Hurricane season earlybirds hit US and Mexico Barely a month into the hurricane season and two major storms have already made landfall in the south east United States and Mexico.

Integro Ltd, the Bob Clements' inspired broking start-up, has continued to find Marsh Inc fertile territory to harvest new recruits.

In what was a relatively uneventful month, world's largest insurer AIG continued to play catch-up with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), delivering its first quarter 2005 results on 27 June.

German reinsurer Hannover Re has revealed plans to realign its under performing US subsidiary Clarendon away from program business to specialty insurance, potentially cutting gross premiums by $1bn and increasing group net retention to 80 percent...

World's largest reinsurer Munich Re has met with a mixed response from ratings agencies following its 19 July announcement that it has increased reserves at its US subsidiary American Re by $1.6bn, cutting group second quarter earnings by EUR0.4bn...

Mutual insurer Equitable Life has dropped the lion's share of its case against its former auditor Ernst & Young (E&Y), reducing its claim for damages to £700mn against the original £2.05bn figure.

The Insurance Insider can reveal that rating agency AM Best has lost a second key figure from its London office in six months, with the resignation of the well-regarded Jose Sanchez-Crespo from his position as general manager of its European Ratings...

Lloyd's revealed this month was parting company with two more senior executives as part of a restructuring that will see the Corporation move further away from a regulatory emphasis to one of operational risk management.