November 2006/3

Advent Capital Holdings has become the latest Lloyd’s (re)insurer to unveil plans for a Bermudian platform, Advent Re, which will write retrocessional business.

Liberty Syndicates - one of the largest Lloyd’s (re)insurers – has reduced its underwriting capacity for 2007 by £187mn.

US giant American International Group (AIG) and CV Starr, the managing agency controlled by its former chairman and CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, have settled the legal disputes stemming from the termination of their business relationship.

Hiscox plc has become the first Lloyd’s insurer to carry out a sidecar transaction, confirming its Syndicate 33 has entered into a quota share reinsurance arrangement with $360mn Bermudian reinsurance vehicle Panther Re, a deal first revealed in the Octob

Willis Group Holdings Limited is to lose a member of its senior management as the broker confirmed that Tom Colraine is to leave the firm after 18 years.

Lloyd’s insurer Chaucer Holdings Plc has launched a new Lloyd’s Syndicate that will provide some £75mn ($148mn) of US catastrophe capacity.

Private equity giant 3i Group plc has hired a team led by Bruce Carnegie-Brown, the former Marsh executive who left the firm suddenly in May this year.

Amlin's decision to cut back on reinsurance spend appears to have paid off handsomely with the group's share price rising over 6 percent today (29 November) to a new high on the back of an upbeat trading statement today.

XL Capital, which announced the first of the post-Katrina sidecars Cyrus Re in November last year, has launched a new Cayman Islands special purpose reinsurance vehicle, Stoneheath Re.

The Lloyd’s Corporation has brought in David Harris, a senior representative of the G6 group of London market insurers, as the three-hundred-year-old Society agrees a number of changes to improve the service it provides.

US insurer The Hartford Financial Services Group has issued a $247.5mn cat bond, Foundation II, to protect the company in the event of certain US natural catastrophe losses.

Bermudian-headquartered (re)insurer Lancashire Holdings Ltd said it is looking forward to a “healthy” 2007 in a trading statement released yesterday (21 November).

UK regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary General Reinsurance UK £1.225mn for arranging two improper reinsurance transactions.

The sudden departure of HCC Insurance Holdings chairman and CEO Stephen Way has prompted a mixed approach from the two main rating agencies. While Standard & Poor’s swiftly affirmed the Houston headquartered firm’s financial strength...

RK Harrison Insurance Brokers Ltd, the independent London market brokers, will appoint the former Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group executive Dominic Collins to replace its retiring executive chairman, Richard Corfield.

It took 18 months for ACE Ltd to persuade the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner to approve the sale of its asbestos riddled Brandywine subsidiaries, so R&SA shareholders might be in for a long wait before they see their US legacy business spun-off.

Despite comfortably outpacing third quarter earnings projections, Bermudian rivals ACE Limited and XL Capital met very different responses from analysts at Morgan Stanley.

AIG beats earnings forecasts American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance company by value, unveiled strong third quarter results on the back of a benign 2006 claims environment.

Speculation that UK broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc was considering a strategy of focussed regional growth was quashed at the end of last month when the company announced a major restructuring that includes greater integration of its two separatel

USI Holdings’ admission at the end of October that it was mulling a private equity buyout offer reflects a growing interest in the broking sector from the investment community.

While Bermudian (re)insurers uniformly booked strident third quarter results, as soaring cat rates post-Katrina combined with a virtually loss-free hurricane season...

Aspen Insurance Holdings – the Bermudian domiciled (re)insurer which lost three of its four underwriting heads this summer – revealed plans to leverage its balance sheet earlier this month with a $200mn hybrid offering and details of a share buy-back.

If 2006 was the year of the sidecar, there is every sign that these and other non-traditional reinsurance vehicles will continue to emerge next year.

The Corporation’s chief executive Richard Ward is understood to be close to ordering a restructuring of its senior management and reporting structures, according to sources.