June 2013/3

Tom Bolt, the director of performance management at Lloyd's, has directed some wry swipes at the recent rash of broker portfolio facilities in the London market.

Benjamin Lawsky has again demonstrated his fervour for regulatory activism by publishing a report slating life insurers for minimising the amount of capital that they have to hold in reserves through $48bn of "shadow insurance" transactions.

The Insurance Insider tracks all the notable P&C sector share prices of the last week and compares year-to-date performances

Andrew Torrance, the current head of Allianz UK, is to become the CEO of the German insurer's US operation Fireman's Fund.

Bryan Wilburn and David Barrett have denied allegations that they breached a contract with US wholesaler ClearView Risk Holdings and subsidiary Southwest Risk by establishing a rival firm

The $1mn+ legal dispute between Costa Rican insurer Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) and brokers Hemispheric Reinsurance Group (HRG) and Howden Insurance Brokers took another turn last week after a Florida judge allowed INS to amend its complaint against the intermediaries to include fraudulent misrepresentation and constructive fraud.

New regulations, taxes and permanently low interest rates could threaten the insurance industry's ability to plug the estimated EUR4tn-EUR5tn European investment funding gap between 2012 and 2016, according to a study by Insurance Europe.

EIOPA has published its findings on life insurers' long-term guarantees, one of the main sticking points in getting Solvency II off the ground

Swiss investment manager Twelve Capital has increased its total assets under management (AuM) to almost $2bn after agreeing to take over the management of Falcon Private Bank's insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds.

The new capital lured by the relatively high returns of the catastrophe reinsurance sector could be around longer than some market watchers expect, according to Guy Carpenter's head of global business intelligence David Flandro.

Private equity heavyweight Apollo is not convinced that the reinsurance pricing cycle has been altered by the rise of the alternative market and has questioned whether now is the right time to move into the insurance-linked securities (ILS) management sector, according to sources.

Four new cat bond offerings have been launched in the past 10 days as sponsors continue to take advantage of the strong appetite among investors for securitised catastrophe reinsurance risk. We look at all the bonds in the pipeline, together with 2013 issuance to date...

US reserves adequacy has continued their long-term decline, studies of the 2012 year end US statutory Schedule-P filings reveal

Rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has outlined its view of the common causes of failure at insurance companies based on its experience covering the sector.

Investors should be mindful of the "book value headwinds" created by rising interest rates, according to JMP Securities analyst Matt Carletti.

Only three representatives of the giant continental reinsurers made it to the top 50 this year, with Swiss Re CEO Michel Lies placing 31st with total compensation of $7.2mn and Scor CEO Denis Kessler ranking 43rd with total pay of $5.9mn.

Only one broking executive was among the industry's top 10 earners this year, with the retiring Brian Duperreault of Marsh & McLennan Companies making it to seventh place.

The CEOs of the quoted London market (re)insurers were rewarded with substantial increases in remuneration last year after their companies reported strong 2012 results, combined with increased share prices.

The total remuneration of the 16 CEOs in our Bermuda composite grew by 38 percent in 2012, bringing the total to $128mn, according to data compiled by The Insurance Insider.

The 50 highest paid executives in our universe of publicly listed P&C (re)insurance carriers and brokers earned total compensation of $497mn in 2012, almost $10mn on average per person, our annual four-page survey reveals...

We analyse all the major capacity changes on the Citizens' 1.6 programme...

After the summer sales in Florida, with rates typically slashed by 15-20 percent, catastrophe reinsurers are returning to something like normality with the renewal of Australian cedant Suncorp, which looks set to renew its vast cat treaty at a risk-adjusted rate reduction of around 5 percent.

QBE underwriter Thomas Beasley is set to move from the insurer's flagship Syndicate 386 to Amlin, where he will reunite with former QBE colleague Martin Boreham.

Liberty Syndicates is in line to pick up M&A underwriter Richard Winborn from Zurich Financial, The Insurance Insider understands.