July 2010/4

American International Group (AIG)'s $725mn Ohio pension funds settlement appeared to bring a long-running securities litigation case to a close.

Nearly two years after Hurricane Ike made landfall on the US coast, state insurer of last resort the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) has agreed to pay a $189mnn settlement to Galveston residents whose homes were completely destroyed in the storm.

US retailer Brown & Brown Inc booked second quarter net income of $41.2mn, up 1.3 percent on Q2 2009, as it fought against falling revenues and the squeeze on margins caused by the weak US P&C markets.

Broking giant Aon has indicated that its $4.9bn bid for global consultancy firm Hewitt Associates will not be affected by Hewitt's move to buy Chicago-based investment consultancy EnnisKnupp.

London-listed Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has added three new independent European brokers to its network and acquired a 20 percent stake in one of them - Austrian company the Greco Group.

Chubb Corp is in discussions with the major brokers about formally returning to contingent commissions, even though it already offers similar arrangements to its producers.

Aon's announcement last week that it would again take contingent commissions has led to predictable howls of protest, almost six years after the former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer's bruising campaign

Australian (re)insurer QBE has warned that its first-half profits are likely to be 40 percent down on 2009, as it wrestles with net realised and unrealised equity losses of US$228mn.

Spanish-headquartered Mapfre Group has posted a 6.3 percent gain in gross first-half pre-tax profits to EUR874.5mn, despite a EUR96.6mn Chile earthquake hit together with Iberian Peninsula and US storms impacting its bottom line.

Platinum Underwriters has laid down a marker to its Bermudian peers and reaffirmed its commitment to cycle management by shrinking its premium base and growing its share repurchase programme in response to unappealing market conditions

Beazley Group threw the gauntlet down to its fellow Lloyd's specialty (re)insurers by posting a lowly 89 percent combined for the first six months of the year, despite heavy cat losses and weak investment markets.

There was much in common between US property and casualty giants Travelers Companies and Chubb Corp, as they unveiled second-quarter figures blighted by a heavy catastrophe burden but offset by higher-than-expected releases from prior-year loss reserves.