October 2008/3

WR Berkley confirmed the hire of a financial institutions (FI) team from American International Group (AIG), as previously revealed by The Insurance Insider.

AM Best has downgraded Bermuda-based insurer XL Life reinsurance’s financial strength rating from A to A-, citing declining premium and capitalisation pressure as its parent, XL Capital Ltd winds down its business profile within life reinsurance.

Lloyd’s insurer RJ Kiln & Co Ltd has confirmed Lloyd Tunnicliffe as active underwriter on its Syndicate 807.

Broking giant Aon Corporation has agreed a $154.7mn deal to sell off its auto unit AIS Management Group to Mercury Insurance Group, California’s third-largest personal automobile insurer.

Swiss (re)insurer Glacier Group has appointed Richard Etridge as CEO of its Leichtenstein headquartered insurance subsidiary.

London managing general agency (MGA) Synergy Insurance Services has entered the high net worth (HNW) market with a product it says could cut premium layout for clients by up to 40 percent.

Leading global reinsurer Swiss Re has partnered with the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) to develop a weather derivatives contract to hedge against loss of maize crops as a result of drought in Malawi.

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) agreed to adopt six supervisory papers on the key issue of solvency assessment at its annual conference 2008 in Budapest last week.

XL Capital preannounced an estimated third quarter net loss of $1.65bn to $1.67bn that confirmed a $1.4bn charge in relation to its August transaction to close the majority of liabilities to former bond insurer affiliate Security Capital Assurance (SCA).

ACE Ltd has continued its efforts to grow in markets traditionally dominated by American International Group (AIG) by boosting its commercial D&O capability with a move to write the business at Lloyd’s.

Speaking during a panel discussion at rating agency AM Best’s third annual European insurance ratings conference, Tony Brooke-Taylor of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said that many internal capital management models (ICM) do not capture the full

The Insurance Insider London 100 (www.london-100.com ) meeting of 16 October heard an uncommonly positive outlook on the potential severity of the financial crisis from guest speaker Howard Wheeldon, London-based senior strategist of interdealer broker BG