October 2011/3

The ILS market is regaining its impetus after a mid-year slowdown, with forecasts of a $2bn-$2.5bn bumper fourth quarter.

Insurers seem broadly content to accept prices that are flat-to-slightly up for airline programme premiums, even though their exposures and limits are substantially higher, according to two major brokers in the sector.

Insurance Institute of London (IIL) president Martin South used his inaugural lecture to call attention to the London market's shortcomings in paying claims.

Terrorism insurance was the "wrong cover" for insureds that suffered property damage in the Arab Spring, as civil commotion of this type is excluded under the standard wording, two experts have said.

The price of debt issued by European (re)insurers is poised to rally after six months of falling valuations, as continental governments and regulators edge closer to intervening in a bid to shore up confidence in their faltering banks and sovereign debt.

Whereas 12 months ago delegates appeared to leave the annual National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (Napslo) convention in Atlanta in a dark mood, last week's event in San Diego had a rather sunnier tone.

Despite a relatively quiet 2011 US hurricane season, a number of US-listed (re)insurers are likely to publish disappointing quarterly earnings later this month.

Japanese insurers are likely to take the largest losses from property damage and contingent business interruption (CBI) claims caused by the recent severe flooding in Thailand. The floods have caused extensive damage and disrupted production at a swathe of industrial facilities, our sister title Inside FAC reported last week.

BP and Anadarko Petroleum Company have agreed to settle all claims relating to the Macondo well blowout and Deepwater Horizon rig disaster, both companies announced.

Omega's board has acknowledged that it has held talks with its suitor Haverford about concerns that some of its institutional shareholders have raised about the terms of the deal.   

Re has gone from having three official suitors to just one and then back up to three again.

Aim-listed broker Thompson Heath and Bond (THB) has extended the deadline for finalising the details of its takeover by US wholesaler AmWINS by a month to 14 November, after the two sides failed to conclude negotiations in time.