March 2013/2

US insurer American Safety Insurance (ASI) may become the latest "buy to kill" acquisition by a run-off company as the Bermudian Catalina revealed that it had built a near 6 percent stake in the firm last week.

Insurers may be more willing to deny executive liability coverage when wrongdoings involve child abuse, following a high profile judgment in Pennsylvania last month.

White Mountains has said that its $20mn legal wrangle with Allstate over the $1.01bn sale of Esurance has entered arbitration.

Oil giant BP is entitled to claim from rig owner Transocean's $750mn liability cover in relation to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, a US circuit judge has ruled.

Marsh does not have to disclose correspondence between the firm and the former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer, who waged a campaign against the broking giant in 2004-05, a New York district judge said on 8 March.

American International Group (AIG) paid $11mn to US state regulators in October last year to settle investigations over its life insurance claims processes, according to regulatory filings.

Gabriel Bernardino, the chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa), has given a stiff warning to national regulators about the dangers of the low interest rate environment.

The Florida Catastrophe Risk Capital Access Facility (FCRCAF) would be set up within the State Board of Administration (SBA), which also oversees the state-backed cat fund.

Florida's legislative session kicked off last week with two bills passed at committee stage that aim to reduce the ultimate taxpayer exposure by encouraging more risk transfer to the private (re)insurance market

The alternative reinsurance market has increased its share of the $18bn premium global property cat reinsurance market to 15 percent and is expected to make further inroads...

State Farm is returning to the cat bond market with a new Merna Re earthquake issuance.

Reinsurers are likely to pursue third party capital vehicles with longer-term horizons such as cat funds or sidecars in 2013, while the number of temporary, opportunistic structures looks set to diminish, a panel of experts agreed at the annual gathering of professional involved in securitisations.

Weekly share price movements and key data on The Insurance Insider's universe of P&C (re)insurers and brokers

As the 2012 results season nears its close, the total disclosed losses from Superstorm Sandy are now close to $19bn...

Although Aviva's decision to cut its final dividend was anticipated by many analysts, the scale of the "rebasing" last week saw the UK insurer's share price slump.

The state of Qatar will seek to develop Al Koot, the part-privatised former captive insurer of state oil and gas company Qatar Petroleum (QP), as a local reinsurer and will invite local and foreign participation

Almost a third of Lloyd's non-aligned syndicates have reported a loss for the 2010 year of account, but it is the modestly sized Sportscover Syndicate 3334 that is taking one of the biggest hits.

US P&C commercial prices climbed for the eighth consecutive quarter with rates up almost 7 percent in Q4 2012, according to Towers Watson's Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey (Clips) published last week.

US crop excess-of-loss reinsurance protections look set to show only modest rate rises on renewal despite 2012 being one of the worst loss years in the market's history, The Insurance Insider understands.

Private equity backed Lloyd's insurer Ark has increased its profit forecast for 2011 despite the $100bn+ of cat losses in the year

Lloyd's (re)insurer Canopius has reported a 17 percent post-tax return on equity for 2012 on a combined ratio of 95 percent, as it broke the $1bn premium threshold

Doug Worman has emerged as a high profile departure in the fall-out of the shareholder-approved acquisition of his employer Alterra by Markel. According to sources, Worman, who is CEO of Alterra US Insurance and executive vice president of its parent Alterra Capital, resigned from the

The state of Qatar will seek to develop Al Koot, the part-privatised former captive insurer of state oil and gas company Qatar Petroleum (QP), as a local reinsurer and will invite local and foreign participation.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which taken as a whole is close behind Germany as the world's fifth-largest economy, will see its insurance markets out-grow GDP growth over the next few years.

Qatari reinsurer Q-Re wrote a substantial amount of motor excess-of-loss (XoL) business at the 1 January renewals on the back of a "fairly strong market" and rates that had come to the "right level", according to newly appointed CEO Gunther Saacke.

AmTrust Europe wrote $277mn of Italian hospital liability business in 2012, demonstrating just how dominant the specialist insurer has become in a class that caused heavy losses to its rivals five years ago.

But light at the end of the tunnel for American Financial Group's London market insurer as 2010 year of account closes with a profit...

Tower Group's redomicile to Bermuda is set to close this week following the pricing of the private equity placement financing the US insurer's reverse merger into Canopius Bermuda.

Stalwart insurance investor Stone Point Capital and Icat backer Elliott Management Corporation are among a small number of remaining bidders in the Atrium sales process, The Insurance Insider can reveal...

Insurance legend John (Jack) Byrne, former CEO of GEICO, White Mountains and Fireman's Fund, has died at the age of 80 from prostate cancer.

RFIB hires Bell & Clements exec; Mapfre plans US expansion in 2013; Esure targets £1.15bn float; Validus replaces CRO; Fascione departs Lancashire; Hannover Re recovers on Sandy

Stephen Catlin has said that in some parts of the world the Lloyd's and London market still has some way to go to regain its standing after the heavy losses and internecine litigation of the early-to-mid 1990s.

Allied World has reached a settlement with Hannover Re over a legal dispute relating to two portfolios of US apartment complex property risks it wrote in 2009/10 which were ultimately securitised into the capital markets via an innovative bond.

We often talk of developing economies, but it is rare to see a place develop in front of one's eyes, in real time...

Global specialty insurer Torus and its private equity backers First Reserve and Corsair Capital have appointed Goldman Sachs to run a strategic process that may cause the business's equity ownership and capital base to change