Supplements

If there was one common talking point at the 2012 Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous, it was possibly how little there was to talk about - unless you were in convergence

In 2010 and 2011 when we last gathered some of the industry's most senior movers and shakers round a table in Monte Carlo, we heard progressively more frustrated tales of woe around the latter stages of the late soft market cycle

Once more we decamped to the south of France for the wonder that is the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous and the fac market was able to pitch its very own tent amidst the treaty encampments

In 2010 and 2011 when we last gathered some of the industry's most senior movers and shakers round a table in Monte Carlo, we heard progressively more frustrated tales of woe around the latter stages of the late soft market cycle

The Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous - three Groundhog days at the end of the summer on the Cote d'Azur, where reinsurers, their brokers and clients go to refresh relationships, re-enacting a ritual that varies little from year to year. Except that it is always slightly different.

At The Insurance Insider's legacy roundtable a year ago, the most prominent theme was hope. Hope sprung eternal: hope that the new Solvency II regime would lead to greater opportunities for buyers of run-off assets; hope that a long soft cycle on rates would force live-market players to consider the use of their capital; and hope that the impact of catastrophes early in 2011 would prove a boon to the sector.

Considering last year's string of brutal natural catastrophes, few market watchers would have been surprised if the London market had shrunk a little by the end of the year. But how many would have predicted that the reason for it shrinking would be M&A at handsome multiples to book value, leaving (once Hardy and Omega complete) just five publicly quoted Lloyd's (re)insurers?

Last year I attended my first, and, as it turns out, last Norwich Rendezvous and Association of Run-off Companies (ARC) conference in London. A common topic of discussion at these events was the dwindling number of attendees. "Run-off," came the observation of more than one wag, "is running itself off"

Welcome once more to the Global Energy and Power Review. When I sat down last year to write this letter the oil spill at BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster was 12 months in the past but still looming large over the offshore oil sector, as well as sending its tentacles out into the energy (re)insurance markets

Last year I attended my first, and, as it turns out, last Norwich Rendezvous and Association of Run-off Companies (ARC) conference in London. A common topic of discussion at these events was the dwindling number of attendees

At the time of writing, it's over six months since the Atlantis flew its final mission, bringing an end to Nasa's iconic 30-year Space Shuttle programme. With only two major, albeit tragic, failures of the vehicles in some 135 missions, the programme has helped

When The Insurance Insider last set down on the shores of Bermuda, the market was in the immediate aftershock of the Great Tohoku earthquake. It was late March and at our first Bermuda reinsurance roundtable of 2011 the talk was naturally dominated by the impact of the Japanese tragedy