May 2003/1

Alice Schroeder, the US insurance analyst famous for dishing out buffetings on poor performing insurance companies, is to take a sabbatical from equity research to write a book on the investment guru, Warren Buffett. Despite the existing literature on

May was a month to remember for Royal & Sun Alliance (R&SA) as the UK’s second largest domestic non-life insurer brushed off a High Court defeat to successfully float its rebranded Australasian operation Promina and beat expectations with a strong set of

Investors' enthusiasm for the Lloyd's sector is not unlimited, as Creechurch Group’s decision to post-pone plans to float on AIM proves. Earlier this year, the Lloyd's based insurer appointed advisors Hoare Govett to seek investors prepared to back a £

But Lloyd's based agency fights back after R+V withdraws facility... The Lloyd's based managing agency Risk headed by Jean-Claude Chalhoub fought back against its former backer R+V after the German reinsurer withdrew its support last month and filed le

Ten days after Hartford trumped Travelers with a record $2.6bn asbestos reserve charge, moves to introduce meaningful legislation to curb asbestos lawsuits in the US gathered fresh pace. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch introduced a bipartisan bill in s

Corporation accounts reveal pension shortfall grows to £47mn post-tax and £19.9mn fees to support Project Blue Mountain (Kinnect) The Corporation of Lloyd's after tax pension deficit increased last year from £6mn to £47mn (£67mn before tax) because of

Defiant London market contingency underwriters scored a victory in the UK High Court against claims by the insurer of Atletico Madrid, a Spanish football club, that it should be compensated for relegation. The Spanish side's fronting insurer Banco Vi

The swathe of corporate collapses has cost Lloyd’s, and its Central Fund reinsurers, almost £600mn in the last two years. In the last year alone, Lloyd’s paid out £465.5mn on behalf of corporate capital investors who flocked to the market in the late

Former Faraday D&O underwriter Lance Dalzell-Piper has joined Hiscox to help the Lloyd's insurer market its professional indemnity lines.

Benfield, one of the world's largest reinsurance brokers, distributed listing particulars to potential investors on 28 May valuing the management owned firm at between £500mn-£660mn (midpoint £580mn). Despite moving its registration to Bermuda, last y

Although under-reserved and badly run, HIH was more a victim of incompetence rather than corruption. But the improper use of reinsurance helped prolong its tenure Royal Commissioner Neville Owen’s restrained report into the 2001 collapse of HIH Insura

The world's largest reinsurer Munich Re replaces head; Allianz separately confirms replacement for Schulte-Noelle Hans-Juergen Schinzler, the 62 yr old chairman of Munich Re's board of management, announced last month that he will step down at the end