October 2015/1

QBE appoints Grote; US commercial rates down 1%; Berkley Re UK starts fac unit; Arch Re US hires CUO; Suncorp hires Herman; Riordan follows Kerner out of Zurich; Markel gains Hope; Compre reshuffle

Only six days into the fourth quarter of the year, a number of weather events have occurred that could threaten insurers with below-threshold cat losses.

The fictional adventures of an industry titan

Relatively unnoticed, there has been a quiet revolution in insurers' attitudes to fixed income investments over the past few years.

The trial in a long-trailed $85mn fraud case over the loss of the Brillante Virtuoso in 2011 - which has been linked to the murder of a British loss adjuster - has been postponed

The first auction for 2015 capacity on Names-backed syndicates at Lloyd's has seen the biggest price jump in five years, with average prices climbing almost 10p on the previous year to 36.7p per £1 of capacity.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) will work with Lloyd's to streamline some of the administration around Solvency II, the market's chairman revealed at a gala dinner late last month

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has concluded its initial development of the higher loss absorbency (HLA) requirement for global systemically important insurers (G-SIIs)

The imperative to sustain top-line growth is driving publicly traded Florida homeowners' insurers to seek acquisitions outside of the state, with two transactions announced last week.

Share price data on The Insurance Insider's universe of P&C (re)insurers

P&C (re)insurance stocks comfortably beat the performances of both the FTSE 100 and Stoxx Euro 600, with the Lloyd's carriers leading the way

The average share price for the Insider 30 universe of P&C (re)insurers climbed 4.85 percent in the third quarter, significantly outperforming the S&P 500, the FTSE 100 and the Stoxx Euro 600 indices.

Losses to the crisis-hit upstream energy market may have reached $2.7bn in the year to date as medium-sized claims continue to pummel the sector, according to figures from JLT and separate numbers from market sources.

Insurance investment chiefs have responded positively to the proposed changes to securitisation regulations announced last week, and hinted at the possibility of increasing their exposures as a result

EU commissioner Jonathan Hill launched the European Commission's Capital Markets Union action plan late last month, unveiling five initiatives to diversify funding for European businesses

Willis Re's Raju Bohra highlighted a number of unintended consequences that could impact the P&C sector as a result of the revisions to AM Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) model.

As well as addressing cat risk, the revised AM Best Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) points to a new approach to reinsurance recoverables for longer-tail business.

Proposed changes to AM Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) could have far-reaching consequences for insurers on both the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet, driving fresh demand for reinsurance.

Newly acquired fund manager Catco is preparing to expand its listed retro fund, the Catco Reinsurance Opportunities Fund, after setting a $750mn upper limit for new potential share issuances over the coming year.

US mutual fund manager Stone Ridge Asset Management added to its portfolio of reinsurer sidecars in the mid-year renewals, investing a further a $100mn in Swiss Re's Sector Re vehicle, sister publication Trading Risk reported late last month.

JLT's near-monopoly on local council business in Australia has come under further scrutiny following a report by the auditor general of South Australia.

French mutual insurer Covea has secured EUR1.6bn ($1.8bn) of catastrophe reinsurance at a rate reduction of more than 15 percent, in an ill omen for the 1 January renewals, The Insurance Insider understands.

Allianz will put 100 percent of the major aggregate cover purchased by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) last year through its intra-group reinsurance vehicle at 1 January, The Insurance Insider understands.

Players in the UK solicitors' professional indemnity (PI) market suffered another tough round of renewals at 1 October, with a handful of markets accepting 25 percent rate reductions in a bid to grow market share.

Xchanging shares soared more than 50 percent at market opening on 5 October following the news it had received two separate takeover approaches.

International broker AJ Gallagher (AJG) has denied claims that a senior vice president was sidelined after she reported a number of sexual harassments to her manager, who is allegedly a member of the Gallagher family.

As it prepares for an IPO China Re is facing a disproportionately high net loss from the explosions at the Port of Tianjin, owing to its relatively sparing use of outwards reinsurance.

Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) has continued to build its financial lines team in North America ahead of an official launch with the hire of Lance Dalzell-Piper, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Martin Hudson, former director of underwriting at Mitsui Sumitomo at Lloyd's, has re-emerged as CEO of Old Mutual Specialty Insurance, The Insurance Insider has learned.

Novae has continued the rapid build-out of its business by hiring CNA Hardy's senior construction underwriter Steve Cross, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

We're not generally known as a studious sector, so who knew that we in the global (re)insurance world needed to be so learned in the academic disciplines of philosophy and theology?

(Re)insurers are beginning to digest proposed changes to AM Best's Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) that could drive significant demand for cat reinsurance, particularly from smaller, regional US buyers, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Swiss Re is at risk of losing well over $1bn of in-force Chinese premium over the next three years as the market's new solvency regulatory regime takes a major bite out of its top line, with Munich Re also set to forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars of its own business, The Insurance Insider understands.