November 2009/2

Marketform, the Lloyd’s insurer majority owned by the US firm Great American Insurance Group, is undertaking a significant reshuffle of its executive operations to improve its “corporate governance”.

Spanish competition authority the Comisión Nacional de la Competencia (CNC) has fined local insurers Asefa, Mapfre and Caser as well as leading global reinsurers, Munich Re, Swiss Re and Scor a total of EUR120mn for operating a cartel.

Rating agency Fitch said its concerns over reinsurers' ability to tap capital markets following a significant catastrophe have "sufficiently eased" after revising its outlook on the global reinsurance sector from negative to stable.

So-called ‘mega-claims’ are now a common occurence in the power (re)insurance market, with almost half of the $9.85bn total loss recorded over the last ten years the result of just 16 claims.

UK insurer Brit has laid out the timetable for its redomicile to the Netherlands in a reorganisation that it is expected will see a new holding company listed on the London Stock Exchange on 21 December.

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) highlighted the important role of microinsurance "as a means of socio-economic development" at its annual conference.

French reinsurance group Scor is understood to be contemplating a new cat bond in the Atlas series, while leading ILS manager Goldman Sachs is working on three ILS...

Industry loss warranty (ILW) volumes in Q4 have been boosted by livecat trading during October's Typhoon Melor and the purchase of Europe-exposed and US quake peril contracts.

In a landmark decision, a UK High Court Judge has ruled that Berkshire Hathaway’s run-off vehicle Equitas may recover reinsurance losses based on modeled calculations of the notorious LMX spiral from Randall & Quilter (R&Q)-owned reinsurer Brandywine.

O’Neill set to join Marketform; R&Q named ARC company of the year; UK non-life run-off liabilities up 30%...

The industry loss warranty (ILW) market was finally able to settle contracts impacted by the 2008 US hurricane season after PCS finalised its industry onshore loss estimate...

As the major brokers reported their Q3 results Aon was left defending the effect that its $1.4bn purchase of independent reinsurance broker Benfield in Q3 2008 had...