October 2004/1

After several weeks of indifferent news, troubled Swiss reinsurer Converium received welcome boosts from ratings agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch, who both upgraded the reinsurer a notch on the strength of its successful $420mn right issue.

World's largest insurer AIG confirmed on 29 September that one of its business units was now under criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice for alleged violations of federal securities laws.

Euclidian, the Berkshire Hathaway backed insurance company, will merge with fellow Lloyd’s agency, Marlborough Underwriting.

Chris Fagan, the former chief executive of insurer GoshawK, is behind an attempt from a Japanese private equity house to take the UK listed company private. Fagan was ousted from GoshawK last year following the collapse of its Lloyd's Syndicate 102 la

The opaque, but growing, practice of brokers charging payments from insurers to place business with them has been attacked by an influential US think tank as “potentially damaging”. The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) urged senior industry regulators

The following article was run as the leader in the May 2004 issue of The Insurance Insider... As the controversy over PSAs grows - with subpoenas issued to both brokers and insurers - could the actions of US regulators cost MMC and AON more than $1.5bn

Marsh Global Broking - the division responsible for agreeing Placement Service Agreements (PSAs) with insurers - was conceived with the best of intentions; all the more ironic, then, that it has become demonised as a peddler of kickbacks and bid-rigs by t

Isn't it about time there was greater transparency in paying overriders to brokers? Should clients be concerned that their broker receives millions of dollars in hidden kickbacks from insurers for bringing business to them, in addition to the upfront c

Spitzer is also examing the practice of 'tying-in' When Daniel J Popeo, chairman of the US think tank Washington Legal Foundation, complained to Eliot Spitzer about the activities of the global brokers on 10 February, the immediate attention was on so

The New York attorney-general’s extraordinary allegations of bid-rigging at Marsh - and some of the world’s largest P&C insurance companies - have stunned the industry.

The New York attorney-general’s extraordinary allegations of bid-rigging at Marsh - and some of the world’s largest P&C insurance companies - have stunned the industry.

In our regular monthly News Digest, we round up key stories from the last month, presenting them in easily digestable snippets. The major events of the month - including Spitzer’s complaint - are featured elsewhere in the issue