March 2014/5

The Insurance Insider's look-up table for all of the weekly, monthly and YTD share price movements of the companies in our updated composites

Lloyd's surpassed the £3bn profit threshold for the first time since 2009 last year, with its 80+ competing syndicates reporting a 14 percent rise in aggregated net income to £3.2bn following a lighter claims burden and higher reserve releases

Spanish (re)insurer Mapfre was among the strongest stock market performers last week with a gain of over 5 percent, easily surpassing The Insider 30 index of European and US insurance shares, which fell 0.22 percent

Four of the eight years of account left open at Lloyd's in 2012 were closed last year, but two syndicates managed by Argenta and Jubilee failed to close their 2011 years, the market's 2013 annual results revealed.

It was a busy week for Catalina last week as the legacy acquisition firm announced that it had fought off competition from Enstar to purchase Sparta Insurance Holdings as well as completing the previously announced deal to purchase run-off reinsurer Alea Group.

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is one of just two regulators worldwide to receive an A grade in an international ranking of financial supervisors based on their handling of investigations.

Hiscox CEO Bronek Masojada last week renewed his criticism of the proposed structure of the UK's Flood Re scheme ahead of the draft legislation's return to the House of Lords today (31 March).

London Market Group (LMG) chairman Steve Hearn announced plans last week (25 March) to extend the organisation's remit in order to tackle the London market's diminishing position as a global insurance hub.

A Chicago law firm has asked a US court to force Malaysia Airlines and plane manufacturer Boeing to release documents relating to crew training and the aircraft's design following the loss of flight MH370.

Costa Rican insurer Instituto Nacional de Seguros (INS) is demanding a retrial in a long-running legal battle with Howden and Miami-based broker Hemispheric Reinsurance Group (HRG), after a Miami Court rejected allegations the brokers had charged excessive amounts for their services.

A UK court of appeal judge has dealt a blow to the credit hire market, ruling that the onus is on the insured party to replace a car that has been written off as soon as it is economically possible.

Troubled UK general insurer RSA, forced last week to raise £748mn ($1.25bn) from stock market investors to repair its tattered balance sheet, has taken a series of other steps since the start of the year to shore up its finances, the prospectus for its rights issue shows.

With M&A activity expected to heat up in 2014, (re)insurers could be forced to deploy golden parachutes in excess of $10mn to release their chief executives, analysis by The Insurance Insider's Data Room has discovered.

The geographical make-up of Lloyd's underwriting capital shifted slightly in 2013, as capacity provided by UK-listed and other corporate sources continued to narrow.

Lloyd's double-digit percentage point profit increase last year was driven by a strong performance in property and reinsurance underwriting, outweighing slower progress in the energy, aviation and motor markets, an analysis of the market's 2013 results shows.

Montpelier Re's London-listed Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund has postponed its latest planned issue of new shares.

Karen Clark & Company (KCC) has extended its RiskInsight modelling platform to include probabilistic tools that can be used to price risk policies and portfolios of risk.

Oxbridge Re, a start-up reinsurer backed by executives from Florida-based HCI Group, has raised $26.4mn of net proceeds from its initial public offering on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market.

The trend towards consistently higher underlying combined ratios confirmed by Lloyd's in its 2013 annual results last week can be attributed to a combination of greater reserving prudence as well as an underlying erosion of pricing in the market over the past decade, according to Lloyd's director of finance and operations Luke Savage

Despite announcing his departure in July 2013, former Lloyd's CEO Richard Ward will continue to be paid by Lloyd's throughout all of 2014 in a package likely to be worth over £1mn.

Specialty (re)insurer Allied World has announced that it has received approval to set up its own Lloyd's managing agent with effect from 1 April, confirming a move first revealed by The Insurance Insider in September last year.

CEO Dane Douetil has invested a seven-figure sum in BMS to become the second-biggest shareholder after rival broker AHJ, which warehoused the intermediary in its early days, The Insurance Insider understands.

Barbican's marine fund did not go live at 1 January and is now unlikely to do so before 2015, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

AIG grew the property premiums in its London-dominated UK business by 23 percent in 2013, as the business stripped 19 percentage points from its combined ratio.

The future of nascent Cayman Islands reinsurer Southport Re appears uncertain because of concerns over its capital base and the quality of assets it has been using to collateralise its underwriting, The Insurance Insider understands.

Ailing insurance services provider and acquisition firm Tawa last week confirmed losses of $78.3mn in 2013, more than three times the result in the previous year.

Former investment banker John Nelson will remain as chairman of Lloyd's until at least 2017 after the Corporation decided to extend his contract last week.

The stock market flotation of Lloyd's carrier Brit Insurance, the first in London by a specialty P&C insurer in more than eight years, has received a cool reception from investors amid a mood of heightened caution towards insurance stocks.

With Bermuda abuzz with talk of hedge fund reinsurance start-ups, Validus-supported PAC Re is exploring the possibility of expanding beyond property cat into other lines including casualty treaty, The Insurance Insider understands.

Although as yet there has been no kneejerk reaction within the industry following sanctions against Ukrainian and Russian individuals, insurers are currently reluctant to write new credit and political risk business exposed to these territories, according to several industry sources.

Major Russian insurer Sogaz has written a comfort letter to brokers this week confirming that Bank Rossiya, which became the subject of US sanctions last week, no longer has a controlling stake in the company.

The war underwriters for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, led by Lloyd's insurer Atrium, have paid half of the $100mn hull loss owing to the continued uncertainty over the cause of the plane crash, The Insurance Insider understands.

Interest rates are set to rise gradually over the next three years, according to economists speaking at the Deutsche Bank London 100 working group roundtable last week.

Brit lists; Aon stalemate; Asia Pac tie-up; Shares postponed; AJ Gallagher departure; Tawa loss; BMS weather; Willis CFO...

Former Atrium underwriter Christine Dandridge has begun work on a Lloyd's start-up with backing from Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

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Private equity-owned 2006-start-up Ironshore is preparing for an IPO that could value the business at $2.5bn, The Insurance Insider can reveal.