June 2009/5

UK-quoted broker Thompson Heath Bond Group plc (THB) has pointed to sluggish insurance markets for a fall in the group's earnings at the six-month stage.

Actuarial and risk management firm Towers Perrin Forster & Crosby – the parent of the world’s fourth largest insurance broker – has agreed a merger with fellow professional services firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

A lawyer that represented independent directors of AIG has disputed claims by former chief Maurice "Hank" Greenberg of a mutual agreement between the insurer and Starr International Co (SICO) to end a deferred compensation scheme.

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd has been told by US regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that its three-year long investigation into the firm is now closed and it will not recommend any enforcement action.

By any measure, it was an eventful week for Lloyd's insurer Chaucer Holdings...

London market insurers writing liability cover for energy giant Sempra face a lower-than-expected payout, after the San Diego-based firm settled with homeowner insurers over liability for three California wildfires that devastated parts of the state.

Former Benfield Group directors John Coldman and Michael Rees are joining up with ex- colleagues to form a new business after the reinsurance broker was sold to Aon last year in a £935mn deal.

Lloyd's and Bermuda (re)insurer Omega Insurance Holding's offer for up to 50 percent of the 2010 capacity on its Lloyd's Syndicate 958, set to close on Thursday (2 July) has been relatively well received by members' agents and analysts alike.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) raised its insurer financial strength rating on Nigeria-based African Reinsurance Corp to 'A-' from 'BBB+' with a stable outlook.

Equitas, the legacy albatross that has hung around the neck of Lloyd's Names ever since its creation in 1996, can now be formally detached after the UK High Court approved the transfer to a new company, Equitas Insurance Ltd, on 25 June.

The proposed Scottish Lion scheme of arrangement returns to court next month, in a hearing that will determine what impact a dissenting minority of policyholders may have on the initiative.

Hannover Re and Munich Re last week released estimates of their exposure to the largest man-made loss of the year - the 1 June Air France crash in which 228 people died.