November 2009/5

Bermuda is once again consumed with talk of consolidation among the class of 2005 reinsurers, as the market heads into a pricing downturn after a bumper cat-free year, The Insurance Insider reports from Hamilton.

The US House Financial Services Committee has approved a bill to set up a federal government office monitoring the insurance industry for the first time.

Perils AG, established this year to aggregate and provide industry-wide European catastrophe insurance data, haslaunched its industry loss index service for European windstorm events.

UK run-off manager Randall and Quilter (R&Q) has received regulatory approval from the Financial Services Authority for its acquisition of RK Carvill’s broking portfolio.

Insurance simply does not present the same systemic risks as banking, so regulators should not treat the two sectors in the same way, the chief economist of Swiss Re today told an industry forum in London.

The UK High Court yesterday (November 30) granted the English and American Underwriting (EAUA) Pools leave to convene meetings of creditors, The Insurance Insider understands.

American International Group (AIG) has closed a debt-for-equity swap with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that will slash its government debt by $25bn, in return for a stake in its two life insurance units, which will eventually be spun off from the group.

Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has delivered on ambitions to expand its presence in the employee benefits arena with a £27.5mn cash purchase of HSBC Actuaries and Consultants (HACL).  

Max Capital promotes Kalainoff; Liberty hires former Ace legal counsel; Liberty appoints London casualty manager; Torus adds dedicated US property claims service with new hire; New CFO for Argo

Cooper Gay expands in US with Atlanta opening; State Farm appeals Texan fine

Investment analysts are concerned about the quality of financial reporting from the insurance sector, which they believe is under-valuing major companies.

Run-off specialists have warned that a UK bill on the rights of third parties claiming against insolvent insurers places further administrative burdens on the industry.

London market (re)insurers are not expecting significant claims to result from the Russian train disaster last Friday in which 25 people were killed, The Insurance Insider understands.

Outgoing Lloyd's franchise performance director Rolf Tolle has reaffirmed the need for the market to generate long-term profit on casualty business next year, just a month before his handover.

Munich Re is positioned to squeeze out Ergo's remaining minority shareholders after increasing its hold of the German subsidiary of UniCredit to more than 95 percent.

Zurich Insurance and Munich Re are at the vanguard of a public-private network launched to develop insurance products for low-income people in emerging markets.

Glacier Group's chief strategic officer and founding team member, Dirk Turley, and UK insurance branch manager Steven Price have stepped down following the resignation of founding CEO Robbie Klaus.

A study of 11 microfinance institutions with exposure to natural and man-made catastrophes found that they had little in the way of risk management and no insurance to protect themselves or their clients against the impact of disaster.

The efficiency of insurance as a way of leveraging capital means that there will not be the need for as many microinsurance organisations as institutions, according to private equity fund specialists.

Five Ohio pension funds are suing rating agencies Standard & Poor's (S&P), Moody's and Fitch, accusing them of "wreaking havoc" on US financial markets.

Maurice "Hank" Greenberg and Howard Smith have buried the hatchet and settled their long-running legal battles with former employer American International Group (AIG).

The controversial transactions undertaken by Kingsway Financial Services to shed its discontinued subsidiary Lincoln General could push the group into liquidation, AM Best has warned.

American International Group (AIG)'s share price was under pressure following concerns about the sufficiency of its P&C loss reserves.

At the heart of the industry's modest 2009 catastrophe losses is an extraordinarily gentle US storm season.

The specialist space/satellite market is likely to see rates fall to earth in 2010 after another profitable underwriting year, according to Aon's International Space Brokers.

The industry's catastrophe losses from both natural and man-made disasters have more than halved to $24bn this year, according to Swiss Re's research unit Sigma.

Six (re)insurers appear alongside 24 banks on a list of global institutions that pose a systemic risk to the financial system and require cross-border supervision.

The litigation surrounding attempts by Stanford executives to tap their Lloyd's directors' and officers' (D&O) policies to fund their defence is continuing to grow.

Two key cases will see appeals launched in the first week of December under the watchful eyes of the legacy industry.

Capacity trading in the fourth and final 2010 capacity auction for Omega-managed Syndicate 958 was brisk as Names looked to take up Omega's corporate member's capacity buyout offer.

HCC Insurance Holdings has received approval to merge its Lloyd's syndicates 4040 and 4141 for the 2010 year of account, after buying out the remaining external names earlier this year.

London financial institutions (FI) insurers have asked a US court to rule that primary and excess professional indemnity policies issued to Fiserv do not provide coverage for the insured against class actions from the Madoff debacle.

The sale of German state-owned run-off group BF Rückversicherung has taken a further twist following news that the joint bid by GLOBAL Rück and Randall & Quilter (R&Q) is no longer being actively considered, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

The cat bond market has continued its rebound after the closure of Swiss Re's $75mn extreme mortality bond, Vita Capital IV, took total issuance this year to $2.2bn, while Scor launched Atlas VI.

Despite (re)insurers' enthusiasm for writing structured debt insurance, the industry has been swift to deny the prospect of widespread losses emerging from the Dubai debt crisis.

Marsh will enter into a long-term strategic distribution deal with HSBC as part of its agreement to buy the banking giant's insurance broking arm.

Aon is poised to integrate its retail, specialty and facultative reinsurance operations into a new global division, Aon Broking, to leverage greater control over its premium income and portfolio, The Insurance Insider can reveal.