November 2005/4

Greenlight Re will become the twelfth new reinsurance start-up since Hurricane Katrina after being announced by Greenlight Capital boss, David Einhorn, at a New York conference last Tuesday (15 November). The new company has already received a...

Bermudian (re)insurer AXIS Capital revealed today (21 November) further cash raising initiatives with the sale of £250mn in preference shares, less than a week after it announced the sale of 6.8 million common shares in a block trade and taking its...

Elizabeth Monrad, the former chief financial officer of General Re, has as resigned her role as CFO at New York-based financial services organisation TIAA-CREF. After receiving a Wells Notice on May 10 Monrad took a leave of absence in May “to...

Lloyd’s insurer Amlin plc revealed it expects a $52mn bill from Hurricane Wilma but cheered shareholders with an increased profit forecast on its 2003 trading year. In a trading statement to the London Stock Exchange this morning (21 November), the...

If Swiss Re successfully completes its acquisition of GE’s (re)insurance operations next year, it seems likely it will come at a price, after the four leading rating agencies announced they may downgrade the reinsurance giant.

Omni Whittington is set to demerge its insurance and debt divisions enabling its insurance operations to grow internationally. A holding company, Whittington Group Pte, has been set up in Singapore with net assets of $80mn. The majority of the new...

Avian flu could cost insurers up to $200bn if the virus jumped from birds to humans sparking a global pandemic. A range of losses from $71.3bn to $200bn in insured losses is the worst-case scenario according to research from analysts...

Gross premiums fell by 15 percent in the London market during 2004, reversing five years of rises. A report into insurance by International Financial Services London recorded gross premiums of £21.7bn for last year with Lloyd’s producing 54 percent...

Defunct insurer GoshawK Insurance Holdings plc has parachuted in a new management team and floated the possibility of a $15-20mn fund raising as it plans an orderly run-off. Michael Dawson – the former chief executive of Cox Insurance – has become...

Montpelier Re – the Bermudian catastrophe specialist devastated by losses from the trio of US storms – said at the end of last week that it has entered into a 364-day $1bn letter of credit agreement with Bank of America.

HCC Insurance Holdings became the latest insurer to raise capital in the post-storms environment when it announced last week that it had agreed to sell 4,687,500 of common stock shares to Citigroup. The Houston headquartered insurance group also...

Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services (ZFS) reported a record operating performance for the first nine months of 2005 when it released its interim results on 17 November. Net income was up by 21 percent to $2.26bn for the period with earnings per...