July 2007/6

London market reinsurers led by Allianz suffered a blow following a High Court decision in their controversial EUR44.3mn dispute with the North Korean state insurer.

Resurgent UK insurer Royal & Sun Alliance Group saw its shares slide last week against a backdrop of fears over flood losses and jittery investors following the turmoil in the global credit markets.

Xchanging will announce tomorrow it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to partner RI3K in building an end-to-end processing platform for Bermuda’s (re)insurance market, Insider Week can reveal.

Despite a liberal sprinkling of “record” results in last week’s interims, it was a bruising week for (re)insurers on both sides of the Atlantic as equities slumped on the back of continuing fears in the global credit markets.

The final cost of this summer’s UK floods on the reinsurance industry is still unknown but there is little doubt that they will be treated as at least two distinct losses.

Loss estimates continue to flow in as the (re)insurance industry feels the impact of UK floods that could cost carriers in excess of £3bn.

Shares in IPC Holdings fell sharply last week as the Bermudian cat reinsurer followed a profits warning earlier this month with confirmation last week of a second quarter net hits of $62.6mn and $50.1mn respectively from UK and Australian storms and flood

Bermudian reinsurers Everest Re Group and PartnerRe Ltd emerged relatively unscathed from high-profile second quarter Australian and UK cat events to report net earnings increases of 28 percent and 35 percent, respectively, for the period.

Insurers Chubb Corp and WR Berkley began the second period US results season by reporting rising profits in an “outstanding quarter”.

Max Capital Group Ltd reported a strong second quarter, with net income increasing 477 percent over the prior-year period, to $94.1mn, or $1.45 per diluted share, despite gross premium income falling to $241.5mn from $284mn for the second quarter 2006.

Bermudian (re)insurer Arch Capital Group reported a healthy 44 percent rise in its net income of $199.4mn, or $2.65 per share, for the second quarter of this year.

Bermudian giants ACE Ltd and XL Capital announced catastrophe charges of $88mn and $30mn respectively for the UK, US and Australian floods in their second quarter results last week.