October 2017/3

The Mexican state education authority is leading a string of direct and facultative (D&F) losses expected by the London market following the two earthquakes which struck the country in September.

With third quarter earnings disclosures just around the corner, the market is bracing itself for a red Q3 following the losses generated by the recent hurricane season.

The reaction of investors in cat funds that write retro will play a major part in determining the extent of rate hardening for both reinsurers and insurers at 1 January.

Anyone who spends time on LinkedIn will be more than familiar with the eye-catching headlines written by the marketing departments of large recruitment or consultancy firms.

These Mexican losses are just the tip of the iceberg for the London direct and facultative (D&F) market.

London-listed (re)insurers have emerged as the most affected by the third quarter's catastrophe events.

Hiscox appears to be an outlier in its bullish request to write 57 percent more direct premium in 2018 through its Lloyd's platform, according to an initial canvass of the Lloyd's market by The Insurance Insider.

Two well-known figures in the trade credit insurance market have made a return to EC3 after lining up private equity funding to build a wholesale and specialty broker.

After years of deteriorating underwriting conditions in US casualty reinsurance, there is cautious optimism among reinsurers that predicted post-loss hardening in property lines will instigate a slow turn in third party business.

State Auto's specialty carrier Rockhill will not write new or renewal excess and surplus lines (E&S) property accounts after 1 November.

As reinsurers continue to put out provisional loss estimates for Q3 cats, there is a growing recognition that 1 January will bring about a hardening in the US property treaty sector that could spread to other lines.

Wildfires that have ravaged California wine country came under partial control over the weekend, and rain forecast for later this week may let firefighters halt the advance of multiple blazes that have destroyed at least 5,350 structures in the region and left dozens of people dead.