June 2003/2

Despite Bermuda’s established and start-up reinsurers churning out strong results, the global industry continues to be dragged down by the lacklustre performance of the big four reinsurers – Munich Re, Swiss Re, Employers Re, and General Re.

Montpelier Re, who floated last autumn on the New York Stock Exchange, joined fellow post 9/11 start-up Endurance Specialty as an A (excellent) company last Wednesday as the pair were upgraded by A.M. Best.

David Watson, the senior vice president and chief underwriter of XL Re’s London branch, has replaced the former chief executive of Axa Corporate Solutions (UK) Ltd Adrian Ballardie on the board of the International Underwriting Association of London.

Heritage is set to capitalise on the improved rating environment for UK liability by spinning off a new Lloyd’s Syndicate from their existing operations, Insider Week can reveal.

FSA consultancy launched A new consultancy offering help on Financial Services Authority compliance for London market brokers and insurers has launched promising to provide “carefully designed bespoke support to help reduce the cost of achieving and ma

Lloyd’s insurer Brit expects to write upwards of £1.15bn total gross premium income in 2003 after strong 2003 renewals and new business flow in the first few months of the year. This projection is based largely on its recent acquisition of PRI (see Inside

Despite US legislation last year mandating insurers to provide compulsory terrorism cover, reinsurance companies appear reluctant to assume any of the new exposure. This was one of the many findings of the ratings agency Moody’s survey into the implementa

Aspen Re, the London market reinsurer spun-out of the Lloyd’s insurer Wellington Underwriting last year, is planning to reward its private equity backers by floating in the US later this year.

Despite the perceived threat of another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 and initiatives like the TRIA to encourage cover for property and business interruption losses, it is the natural world that still poses the greatest single danger to industry f

The long-running acrimony between California’s insurance regulators and the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) took a turn for the worse last week when the Fund filed a lawsuit against the newly elected Commissioner John Garamendi to prevent his “il

Munich Re – the world’s largest reinsurer by premium – released first quarter results showing an improvement on the final quarter of last year, but massive deterioration on the comparable first three months of 2002. The German group conceded that results

Bermudian (re)insurer PXRE announced last Wednesday that it has filed a shelf registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, paving the way for its planned offering of up to $150mn of securities.