Insurance news

• Liberty fills holes left by Aspen raids

  12-01-2016 23:50
  Liberty International Underwriters (LIU) has continued the process
  of filling the gaps in its senior ranks left by a series of raids
  by rival Aspen.
  In a statement today (12 January), Liberty revealed that it had
  hired William Bell to take on the role of senior vice president of
  environmental, which was left vacant when Bill McElroy left in
  November last year.
  Bell is set to join from Chubb, where he served for more than 12
  years, most recently as...
  
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• Everest builds US distribution team with Zurich and Swiss Re hires

  12-01-2016 23:50
  Everest Re has continued its expansive insurance strategy with
  moves to build out the distribution strength of its US primary
  platform.
  The Bermudian has hired Kevin Dunham from Zurich and Mike Newell
  from Swiss Re Corporate Solutions to its Everest insurance
  distribution management team, it said in a statement.
  It said the hires will strengthen its relationship with key
  trading partners as Everest continues to expand its capabilities in
  the specialty insurance space.
  Dunham will head up marketi
  
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• Worldwide Facilities takes energy quartet from Swett

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Expansive wholesale broker and managing general agency (MGA)
  Worldwide Facilities has swooped to hire a quartet of energy
  brokers from up-for-sale rival Swett & Crawford,
  The Insurance Insider can reveal.
  According to sources, the quartet included casualty-focused
  energy brokers Brian Vassallo, Cade Felker and Dan Freyer, and
  property broker Hayden Haucke.
  Haucke and Felker are both based in energy hub Dallas, with
  Freyer in Chicago and Vassallo in Redondo Beach.
  The four executives are part
  
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• The year of the special purpose syndicate

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Five new start-ups have begun writing business at Lloyd's in
  2016, three of which are special purpose syndicates (SPSs).
  The new SPSs are backed by a range of carriers globally,
  including Mexican reinsurer Patria Re and Latin American carrier
  Istmo Re.
  The new SPS start-ups with foreign backing have been in part
  responsible for the influx of non-Western capital into the market.
  As our analysis has already shown, some £5.1bn ($7.4bn) of
  2016 capacity is now controlled by companies outside..
  
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• Taiping Re corporate member hits $50mn

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Chinese carrier Taiping Re will support more than £35mn
  ($50mn) of Lloyd's underwriting in 2016 via a newly acquired
  corporate member, The Insurance Insider
  has learned.
  In October, to coincide with the visit of Chinese president Xi
  Jinping to London, China Taiping Insurance Group and Lloyd's
  announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU)
  in which they committed to work together to help the firm expand
  into the London market.
  It is understood that Taiping Re was in...
  
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• SII won't be used in Fitch ratings

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Fitch has said that it will not use Solvency II metrics in its
  ratings.
  The long-anticipated Solvency II regime came into effect on 1
  January. However, this month Fitch said that Solvency II metrics
  between insurers were not comparable because of the the different
  calculation approaches that were being used.
  "Many insurers are applying various transitional measures
  which will strongly affect their metrics: some are using internal
  models rather than the standard formula and some regulators are
  ta
  
  Read more

• Pricing on $3bn IG treaty holds up

  12-01-2016 21:17
  The marine market looks set to complete the treaty renewal for
  the International Group (IG) of protection and indemnity clubs with
  a rate reduction of less than 10 percent, The Insurance
  Insider revealed earlier this month.
  However, carriers on the programme have again been forced to
  accept a reduced order after the IG struck a three-year private
  deal with Hannover Re.
  Sources said that the three renewing layers of the programme,
  which is placed by Miller and led by XL...
  
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• Pell resurfaces at tech start-up

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Former Xchanging Insurance Managing Director Max Pell has joined IT
  software company Instanda as interim CEO.
  Instanda provides a cloud-based multi-channel product
  development platform which claims it significantly reduces the time
  and cost of launching new insurance products to market.
  Pell left his role as the head of the London market's back
  office joint ventures with Xchanging in Q2 2015.
  Pell said " I have been very impressed with the
  capabilities and potential of the Instanda product and I
  
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• Peer-to-peer insurer hires 'insurance dream team'

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Newly-formed US "peer-to-peer" insurance company Lemonade
  has announced a string of senior hires from the traditional sector
  led by AIG's former president of product development, Ty
  Sagalow.
  Lemonade, which last month announced that it had received $13mn
  in start-up capital, has targeted its disruptive technology at the
  "centralised and opaque" P&C insurance sector.
  In a statement today (12 January) the fintech company said it
  had appointed Sagalow to take the role of chief insurance
  officer
  
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• O'Neill unveiled as Swiss Re UK CEO

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Swiss Re has appointed Frank O'Neill to head up the group's
  operations for the UK and Ireland.
  He will replace Russell Higginbotham who was appointed as head
  of life and health reinsurance products for the Swiss giant in
  October last year.
  O'Neill, who is set to start on 1 February, has served as
  CEO of Swiss Re's Middle East and Africa business for the past
  three years.
  The group said that his 18-year career had also seen him lead
  businesses...
  
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• Mortgage credit market 'a big deal' for industry: Ehrhart

  12-01-2016 21:17
  An upsurge in demand for mortgage reinsurance has provided a
  material boost for reinsurers struggling with their top lines,
  according to Aon Benfield.
  "We placed [around] $3.5bn of reinsurance for US mortgage
  credit risk, which is probably the biggest new source of demand in
  the marketplace since Hurricane Andrew," Aon Benfield Americas
  CEO Bryon Ehrhart told The Insurance
  Insider.
  He added that if the pace of growth continued, demand could hit
  $6bn a year with $45bn-$60bn outstanding in terms o
  
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• 'Immature' syndicates continue to grow

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Growth at young syndicates outpaced that of mature businesses at
  Lloyd's this year, with "immature" syndicates
  increasing their capacity by more than 9 percent.
  The capacity growth rate at the market's 11
  immature syndicates - defined as those that have entered
  Lloyd's in the last five years - is almost double that of
  mature syndicates, which increased their stamp by 4.6 percent
  overall.
  Immature syndicates account for £1.14bn, or around 4.1
  percent, of total Lloyd's 2016 capacity.
  Our ana
  
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• IAIS: Non-life profitability stable despite slower growth

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Premium growth in the non-life insurance market slowed to 2.5
  percent last year from 2.8 percent in 2014.
  In its latest Global Insurance Market Report, the International
  Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) said that non-life
  insurance premium growth in emerging markets slowed down notably,
  which reflected weaker economic growth.
  However, profitability remained stable as the US P&C
  insurance industry's combined ratio improved by 1.2 percentage
  points to 97.8 percent in 2015.
  In Europe
  
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• First ANV bids due

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Mammoth Canadian fund Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has
  solicited first round bids for its ailing Lloyd's business ANV
  by the end of the month, The Insurance
  Insider can reveal.
  Broking sources said that Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which
  is handling the sale, released a confidential investor memorandum
  just before Christmas.
  Interested parties have been asked to submit indicative
  proposals by the end of January, with a period of due diligence set
  to follow after the bids have been considered
  
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• Emerging market-controlled capacity grows at Lloyd's

  12-01-2016 21:17
  The influx of foreign interest in Lloyd's over the past year
  means 18.4 percent of 2016 stamp capacity is now controlled by
  non-Western capital.
  Our analysis shows that 14 of the 94 syndicates at Lloyd's
  are backed by Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American companies,
  after a flurry of M&A activity and the launch of new special
  purpose syndicates (SPS) increased foreign participation in the
  market.
  Some £5.10bn ($7.43bn) of 2016 capacity is now controlled
  by companies outside of Europ
  
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• CIRC ramps up pressure on Tianjin insurers

  12-01-2016 21:17
  The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) has increased
  the pressure on insurers involved in August's Tianjin port
  explosions to settle their claims by the end of this month.
  Last month, The Insurance Insider
  revealed that BMW's insurers, led by Axa, had been forced to
  increase their loss reserve from EUR23mn ($25mn) to EUR103mn after
  the CIRC demanded that they set a reserve that would closely match
  their final loss payment, with a deviation of no more than 10
  percent.
  This...
  
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• Axa buys more as Generali trims cat cover

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Having scaled back its cat protection in recent
  years, Axa moved in the opposite direction at 1 January as it took
  advantage of a soft international market to buy an additional
  EUR1bn ($1.1bn) of cover, The Insurance
  Insider understands.
  Sources said that Axa expanded its top open market layer from
  EUR330mn xs EUR1.7bn in the 2015 calendar year to EUR1.3bn xs
  EUR1.7bn.
  It also took the opportunity to squeeze the market hard on the
  middle layer of its European wind-dominated...
  
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• Asia Pacific Re hit by CIRC delay

  12-01-2016 21:17
  China Oceanwide Holdings-backed start-up Asia Pacific Re was
  unable to write any business for 1 January after delays in the
  issuance of its licence.
  It is understood that the carrier conducted some low-key
  meetings at the Singapore International Reinsurance Conference in
  November with a view to writing a modest amount of business at the
  start of this year.
  However, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) is
  reportedly working its way through a large number of submissions,
  which has caus
  
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• Arrowhead launches wind-driven facility with $100mn capacity

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Arrowhead General Insurance Agency has begun accepting business on
  its new all-risk commercial property cat facility first revealed by
  The Insurance Insider in October 2015.
  According to sources, the Brown & Brown-owned
  facility has opened at $100mn capacity - less than the up to $150mn
  of limit it was expected to offer at launch.
  It is understood that the markets supporting the initiative are
  Zurich, Global Indemnity subsidiary United National, QBE, Munich
  and Lloyd's syndicates led by Hisc
  
  Read more

• Allianz spares cat reinsurers again

  12-01-2016 21:17
  Global cedant Allianz has once more taken a restrained approach
  to its EUR2bn catastrophe reinsurance renewal by removing little
  more than 5 percent from the suffering cat market, The
  Insurance Insider can reveal.
  Sources said that Allianz had also opted to increase
  its cessions to cat reinsurers by purchasing a new global cat
  umbrella layer - mirroring a structure adopted by its rival Zurich
  in recent years.
  It is understood that Allianz maintained the same rates-on-line
  on its five-layer cat..
  
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• Argo and Asia Capital Re pull SPS

  12-01-2016 18:45
  Argo and Asia Capital Re (ACR) have shelved their plans to
  launch a special purpose syndicate (SPS) at Lloyd's in 2016
  after they ran into regulatory delays, The Insurance
  Insider can reveal.
  However the plan could be revived for 2017 now that the
  regulatory questions that were raised by the proposed creation of
  the complex SPS structure have been positively resolved.
  The Bermudian carrier and the Singaporean reinsurer had received
  approval from Lloyd's this autumn to launch Syndicate 6127 with.
  
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• Blog: What will Maurice Tulloch's legacy as Aviva UK GI CEO be?

  12-01-2016 16:23
  
  Jonathan Swift Postonline The news that Maurice Tulloch is to step down from his post as CEO of Aviva’s UK general insurance business should not have come as much surprise.
  
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• C-Suite - Insurer: Taking it personally

  12-01-2016 15:52
  
  Nichola Thomson Postonline The pace of change in the IT landscape means insurers must listen and act on feedback from brokers
  
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• Donnelly takes permanent CFO role at Pro Global

  12-01-2016 14:47
  Pro Global has appointed Andrew Donnelly as chief financial officer
  (CFO), the UK-listed outsourcing firm said in a stock exchange
  announcement today (12 January).
  Donnelly has been interim CFO since September 2015. He succeeded
  Paul Mooney, who took on the role during the transition period that
  followed Pro's demerger from Tawa.
  Before that Donnelly was group financial controller.
  He joined Pro Global in 2013 and became director of Pro IS in
  December 2015....
  
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• UK storms: Direct Line expects insurance claims to reach up to £140m

  12-01-2016 14:44
  
  Insurance company, which sent out almost 200 claims advisers and adjustors, says about 90% of first damage assessment visits have been completedDirect Line, one of Britain’s biggest insurers, will take a hit of up to £140m from the three storms that flooded parts of Britain in recent weeks. The company put the total cost of clients’ claims in its home and commercial divisions at between £110m and £140m. This was less than analysts had feared, and the company’s
  
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• Aviva faces Tulloch successor conundrum

  12-01-2016 13:56
  
  Marcus Alcock Postonline With Aviva's well-regarded UK general insurance CEO Maurice Tulloch stepping down to focus on a global role within the insurer, speculation is mounting as to which direction the company will take in naming a successor.
  
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• RSA settles €1.25m dismissal dispute with former Ireland boss

  12-01-2016 13:55
  
  Insurer had appealed Philip Smith’s employment tribunal victory
  
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• RSA reaches out-of-court settlement with former Irish CEO Smith

  12-01-2016 13:39
  
  Callum BrodiePostonline RSA has reached an out-of-court settlement with the former CEO of its Irish operation Philip Smith.
  
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• XS Cover launches two agricultural GAP products

  12-01-2016 13:32
  
  Products underwritten by Malta-based insurer Building Block
  
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• RSA settles with Philip Smith - reports

  12-01-2016 13:23 via insuranceage.co.uk
  
  Insurer strikes deal with former executive ahead of an appeal of the €1.25m awarded to him by employment tribunal.
  
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• RSA settles with Philip Smith

  12-01-2016 13:23
  
  Insurer strikes deal with former CEO in Ireland.
  
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• RCIB buys three motor breakdown brands from ERS

  12-01-2016 12:51 via insuranceage.co.uk
  
  Deal includes transfer of 150,000 customers.
  
  Read more

• Swiss Re names new UK and Ireland chief executive

  12-01-2016 12:34
  
  Middle East and Africa head Frank O’Neill replaces Russell Higginbotham
  
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• Motor broker Right Choice buys ERS breakdown units

  12-01-2016 12:16
  
  ERS will continue to underwrite units’ breakdown products under a long-term agreement
  
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• Right Choice buys three breakdown brands from ERS

  12-01-2016 12:14
  
  Katie Marriner Postonline Right Choice Insurance Brokers has acquired three motor breakdown insurance brands from ERS resulting in the transfer of approximately 150,000 vehicles and customers insuring under the Autonational, Auto Aid and Eurorescue brands.
  
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• Generali unveils extended business risk analysis advisory solution

  12-01-2016 12:02
  
  Callum BrodiePostonline Generali has launched an advisory solution providing support in business risk analysis to its corporate clients, which has also been extended to franchised businesses.
  
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• Romero increases profit to £1.2m

  12-01-2016 11:45
  
  Broker says it has “tripled business” over five years as Ebitda grows 50.9% and commissions increase to £9.3m.
  
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• Acromas offloads tax losses to Saga for £7.65m

  12-01-2016 11:31
  
  Katie Marriner Postonline Over-50s insurer Saga is to acquire tax losses from Acromas SPC Co and Acromas Mid Co - a 31.5% shareholder in Saga, worth £15.3m, according to a Saga trading statement.
  
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• Solvency II metrics to be ignored in Fitch ratings

  12-01-2016 11:29
  Fitch said that it would not directly use Solvency II metrics in
  its ratings due to the inconsistency of calculation approaches used
  under the new regulation.
  The new rules came into effect on 1 January, but Fitch said that
  it did not consider Solvency II metrics to be comparable between
  insurers, given the different calculation approaches being
  used.
  "Many insurers are applying various transitional measures,
  which will strongly affect their metrics: some are using internal
  models rather than th
  
  Read more

• RSA agrees settlement with former CEO

  12-01-2016 11:29
  Ireland's biggest insurer RSA has reach an out of court
  settlement with its former chief executive Philip Smith, according
  to The Irish Times.
  Smith had been awarded EUR1.25mn ($1.36mn) by the Employment
  Appeal Tribunal in June last year after taking a case for
  constructive dismissal to the court, but RSA appealed.
  The details of the settlement are not known but RSA, a UK-based
  insurer listed on the London stock market, is expected to confirm
  that the agreement has been made....
  
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• Direct Line unveils £110mn-£140mn net storm hit

  12-01-2016 11:29
  UK personal lines insurer Direct Line has estimated that it will
  face total claims of between £110mn and £140mn from the
  three named storms that battered parts of the UK in December.
  Claims in the commercial division from storms Desmond, Eva and
  Frank are expected to be in the range of £30mn to
  £40mn.
  Taken together, commercial weather-related claims and other
  large claims during 2015 are estimated to be approximately
  £15mn to £25mn more than expected in an av
  
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• PwC predicts “mixed” household premiums after floods

  12-01-2016 11:20
  
  Competition in household will see premiums drop in 2016 with commercial premiums falling as motor rises following impact of flooding and petrol price reductions.
  
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• Fisher pledges to focus on professionalism and diversity

  12-01-2016 11:00
  
  New CII CEO “looking forward” to starting on 1 February and keen to build on foundations laid by outgoing CEO Sandy Scott.
  
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• Pre-April renewal flood victims facing hiked household premiums

  12-01-2016 10:54
  
  Callum BrodiePostonline Flood victims who are due to renew their household insurance policy before the April introduction of Flood Re will be faced with inflated premiums, amid widespread rate reductions elsewhere.
  
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• Ist Central to pursue growth with new Manchester office

  12-01-2016 10:53
  
  Broker plans to create 150 jobs.
  
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• BTG Pactual in advanced talks to sell Pan Seguros stake: reports

  12-01-2016 10:22
  Grupo BTG Pactual is in talks to sell its majority stake in
  Brazilian carrier Pan Seguros as it continues to shore up its
  balance sheet, according to Reuters.
  The Brazilian bank has begun selling off assets in recent months
  in an attempt to calm investor nerves following the arrest of its
  founder André Esteves in November.
  BTG Pactual has sold pools of loans and a stake in Brazil's
  largest hospital chain as well as obtaining an emergency credit
  lifeline worth...
  
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• Flood Re will cause large drops in premium rates - PwC

  12-01-2016 10:22
  
  PwC says that Flood Re will drive down flood victims premiums
  
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• DLG predicts up to £140m in flood losses

  12-01-2016 10:06
  
  Callum BrodiePostonline Losses incurred by Direct Line Group following flooding caused by the storms Desmond, Eva and Frank during December are expected to total between £110m and £140m.
  
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• Mario Greco being lined up as Zurich CEO say reports

  12-01-2016 10:00
  
  Greco worked for Zurich before joining Generali.
  
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• DLG expects storm claims to total £140m

  12-01-2016 09:29
  
  Storms Desmond, Eva, and Frank wrecked havoc across northern England
  
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