March 2017/4

Share price data on The Insurance Insider's universe of P&C (re)insurers

Increasing uncertainty around the Trump administration's ability to pass the promised tax cuts and deregulation depressed US stock markets last week.

Chaucer's Nick Kilhams has been voted the best political risk underwriter in the London market, according to a poll by The Insurance Insider's standalone rankings team.

The investment results of The Insurance Insider's composites broadly improved in 2016, as a combination of a stronger performance by risk assets, rising interest rates and a lengthening of duration helped carriers better their 2015 performance.

All of The Insurance Insider's composites endured a challenging end to the year, with returns down for every group and performance meaningfully weaker for two composites.

All the composites in our analysis recorded higher combined ratios in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2015.

The P&C (re)insurance industry delivered another set of discouraging results for the final three months of 2016, as carriers reported contracting underwriting margins, depressed returns and competitive pricing.

Lawyers have welcomed a closely watched UK Supreme Court ruling involving solicitors' professional indemnity insurance (PII) as a "back-to-basics" verdict after the judgment removed recent lower court embellishments to claims aggregation rules.

Malta has emerged as an unexpectedly strong contender among UK carriers looking for EU hubs in order to retain market access rights in the bloc after Brexit, advisers said.

JLT Re has placed a number of brokers in its facultative energy team under consultation, with the team expected to downsize from 12 to five, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Onex Group's agreement to sell its stake in USI Insurance Services, reportedly at a healthy 12.2x Ebitda, could spur more private equity (PE) funds to take American brokers to the auction block.

Mortgage risk assumed under Freddie and Fannie's ACIS and CIRT programmes has been one of the fastest top line growth areas for reinsurers otherwise stunted by soft market pressures.

A new ratings methodology from AM Best for assessing mortgage reinsurance risk is expected to increase the capital that underwriters will need to hold against the business, which could reduce its returns on equity (RoE).

Travelers has established a new general aviation (GA) consortium in London with a maximum liability line of $165mn, The Insurance Insider understands.

ProSight is attempting to catch a late window of opportunity by spinning off its Lloyd's business, as the market reaches the latter stages of the M&A cycle.

Perhaps unsurprisingly AIG management had little to say on the search for a new CEO when they met sell-side analysts last week.

For all the confidence on show from AIG's management team as they fronted up to sell-side analysts last week, it was hard to look past the absence of Peter Hancock and any news about his likely replacement.

Capital is inanimate, subservient and unable to think for itself.

The increasingly pivotal role played by London-based managing general agents (MGAs) has taken centre stage following Vitruvian's agreement last week to buy into cyber-focused MGA CFC Underwriting at a 15x valuation.