March 2006/2

Lloyd's today (6 April) reported a pre-tax loss of £103mn in its full-year results after absorbing the cost of the worst hurricane season on record.

Shares in Zurich Financial Services have leapt suddenly on suggestions of a takeover by US insurance St Paul Travelers.

German insurer Allianz AG almost doubled profits last year, it announced today (16 March).

Inmarsat has become the first satellite operator to insure with newly launched space consortium LibSat.

UK Insurer Brit Insurance Holdings plc has replaced house broker Cenkos Securities Ltd with Citigroup while unveiling a 2005 profit created by an unexpectedly high release from prior-year reserves.

Reinsurer considers share buybacks as capital surplus grows Strong investment performance enabled German giant Munich Re to shrug off it...

Start-up Lancashire Holdings’ financial strength rating has been placed under review by AM Best after the (re)insurer announced the departure of vice president Alex Richards.

Swiss reinsurer Converium today (15 March) announced net income of $68.7mn for 2005, with $34.2mn added to the total during the final quarter. The fourth quarter figure beat some analyst’s forecasts by close to $30mn, and provided a solid start for...

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced today (13 March) that it has downgraded The Cologne Re of Dublin (TCR) from AAA to A following its parent Berkshire Hathaway’s decision to put it into run-off last December. The reinsurer, which wrote...

UK broker Heath Lambert Group appointed Nigel Thomas as group finance director on 9 March. Thomas joined Lowndes Lambert in 1995 and was involved in the financial aspects of the Lowndes Lambert/Fenchurch Group merger and the subsequent Lambert...

The fate of the campaign by non-US reinsurers to have onerous collateral requirements relaxed for business written in the US should be known by the end of 2006, after the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) finally set itself a...

Lloyd’s insurer Omega Underwriting Holdings predicted a profitable 2005 despite last year’s storm losses with the group estimating a $24mn hit from Hurricane Katrina alone. Omega has forecast a profit of 2.5-12.5 percent for Syndicate 958 on...