Opinion

Talk that Aviva may turn to UK hotels operator Whitbread for its new CEO raises the question of whether carriers and intermediaries should reach more readily across sectoral boundaries for top talent.

Axa XL was in the headlines yesterday for making up to 7.5 percent of its workforce redundant.

A highlight of last week’s packed Insider London conference came when former Catlin COO Paul Jardine was asked a question from the floor about whether he felt his erstwhile colleagues (taken to mean Stephen Catlin and Paul Brand) were “crazy” to be capital-raising for a major new (re)insurance venture in today’s market.

Is it absolutely imperative to run everything out of EC3?

After listening to the Markel earnings call, I feel prompted to again ask the question: is this the end for Markel Catco?

On their way to medals, knighthoods, eternal Olympic glory etc, British cycling giants such as Sir Bradley Wiggins, Victoria Pendleton CBE and Sir Chris Hoy were imbued with a singular driving philosophy which underwrote their path to success.

After an initial honeymoon period, Duperreault is facing the first real test of his tenure.

Normally we ration ourselves to one conference a year where London (re)insurance market folk talk about parochial London problems. Once a year feels about right to bring out some of the old chestnuts of Lime Street politics and give them a good roasting. We usually do this at our November London Market conference.

The supplier contract announcement is the ugly duckling of the corporate communications aviary.

The history of Lloyd’s is deeply interwoven with that of London’s maritime trade. Founded in order to insure ships and their precious contents, the market owes its syndicated nature and worldwide reputation to marine insurance and broking.

Why should Leadenhall be hived off into the Mitsui’s asset management division?

As always at Lloyd’s, the Corporation is attempting to walk a thin line between delivering robust regulation and micro-managing market constituents.