May 2013/2

The cash-strapped Co-operative Group is putting its non-life UK insurance arm, the Co-operative Insurance Services (CIS), up for sale as it looks to realise capital in order to plug an estimated £750mn hole in its finances.

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

(Re)insurance carriers' thirst for big data and analytics has put the industry on the verge of a "tipping point" that will rapidly change the way business is done in the sector, according to RMS CEO Hemant Shah.

Fairfax Financial Holdings has seen its run-off segment fall to a $14.1mn pre-tax loss in the first quarter compared to a pre-tax income of $53.8mn in the prior-year period.

The acquisition of American Fuji Fire and Marine Insurance Company added $6.9mn to White Mountains' first quarter revenue, the (re)insurer revealed in its results last week.

Enstar Group has increased its gross reserves from $3.7bn at the end of 2012 to $5.4bn after closing two major acquisitions in the first quarter.

American International Group (AIG) is now free to pursue its $7bn+ mortgage securities-related fraud claims against Bank of America following a ruling in a California district court last week.

The deputy governor of the Central Bank of Ireland has expressed a "long-standing concern" over current EU plans to allow insurers to devise their own internal models.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) has released a major update to its ratings criteria for insurance companies in a move that it says will provide a more transparent view of how it assesses the sector.

Insurance costs for coastal homeowners' property could be reduced by 20 to 35 percent if the US government made it compulsory for mortgage holders to purchase earthquake cover, according to Aon Benfield's chief strategy officer Bryon Ehrhart.

A proposal to end tax breaks on intra-group reinsurance transactions has been branded "terrible policymaking" at The Insurance Insider's InsiderScope event in New York.

A bill to extend the US government's terrorism insurance programme (Tripra) for a further 10 years has been introduced to the House of Representatives.

Catastrophe bond spreads tightened significantly during the first quarter as pricing "decoupled" from the traditional reinsurance market, said GC Securities in its review of first quarter activity in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

A trio of cat bonds have increased in size as pricing continued to slip below initial forecasts during the marketing process, sister publication Trading Risk has reported.

Following the sudden departure of JLT executive Vyvienne Wade last week, The Insurance Insider steps back from the news to reflect on the wider issues raised by the loss of the broker's lone female board member

Three of the big four listed Lloyd's (re)insurers lifted their gross written premiums in the first quarter.

Following the hype that surrounded RMS(one) at its unveiling in Boston last week, the product received a cautiously optimistic welcome from a number of (re)insurance executives.

Munich Re and Aspen have agreed to migrate their proprietary modelling systems onto the newly launched RMS(one) platform, along with a host of other industry partners that have signed up to support the risk modeller's latest product offering.

The Insurance Insider attended the lavish Exceedance 2013 launch event for RMS(one) in Boston last week to see whether the hype is worth it...

(Re)insurers should reconsider their approach to "safe assets" and diversify their portfolios to include a hedge against inflation and rising interest rates, experts told delegates at InsiderScope New York 2013 last week

Some traditional reinsurers are yet to "adapt" to the new reality of significant alternative capacity, be it in the form of cat bonds, sidecars or collateralised reinsurers, according to Aspen Re CEO James Few

Capital management is a key tenet of managing risk in an underwriting operation, according to Stephen Friedman, chairman of private equity firm and insurance investor Stone Point Capital

Non-traditional capacity is set to put pressure on rates for index-linked and retro products in the second half of the year as un-deployed funds are redirected from the saturated reinsurance market, according to Validus Re CEO Kean Driscoll

"True convergence" has now occurred as plummeting cat bond prices and rates for collateralised capacity have crossed over with traditional capacity, according to Bryon Ehrhart, chairman of Aon Benfield's investment banking group.