November 2012/4

Catastrophe modeller AIR Worldwide has increased its estimate for insured losses from Superstorm Sandy to $16bn to $22bn.

The London market is edging closer to setting up an electronic placing platform that could move its more than 300-year-old paper underwriting traditions into the digital age.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) and Onex Corporation have acquired Alliant and USI Holdings respectively in the two most significant broker M&A transactions this year.   

RSA hires Deloitte chairman; Soames says stay buccaneering; Skuld port of call; Garwyn hires Ives; Plumeri on fiscal cliff; Q-Re gets the Saacke; Gallagher goes Down Under; Crawley swaps jobs after 30 years; Aviva lands new boss

UK outsourcing firm Xchanging is poised to announce the hire of senior Hewlett Packard executive Adrian Guttridge to head its growing insurance practice, it is understood.

Lloyd's start-up insurer Acappella is close to doubling its underwriting capacity next year and is on track to be a standalone syndicate in 2014, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Up-for-sale (re)insurance services provider and run-off buyer Tawa plc is seeking cost savings that will likely lead to mass redundancies at its services companies.

In this business all major catastrophe losses seem to follow a distinct life cycle in the minds of those directly involved.

Almost a month after Superstorm Sandy's landfall in New Jersey there is still huge uncertainty around the scale of (re)insured losses.