Insurance news

• Weakening Irma heads for Florida landfall

  10-09-2017 22:37
  Hurricane Irma's insured loss potential declined as the massive
  category 3 storm's centre pushed west and the eye travelled
  toward the Florida peninsula with landfall expected between Naples
  and the Fort Myers area south of Tampa-St Petersburg later today.
  Irma has just a 10 percent chance of producing insured wind losses
  in excess of $60bn under current track scenarios, catastrophe
  modelling firm RMS said on its website today, noting that loss
  estimates continue to decrease as the storm's expec
  
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• S&P panel members diverge on Irma pricing impact

  10-09-2017 22:37
  A panel of speakers at a Standard & Poor's roundtable in
  Monte Carlo disagreed on how reinsurance industry pricing would
  react to the earnings blow from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
  JLT Re head of analysis David Flandro said that it with $60bn of
  excess capital in the market, there was a lot of headroom before
  losses developed beyond an earnings event.
  But he said Harvey's atypical track would remind people of
  the "randomness" of outcomes in this market and the...
  
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• B3i plans October road test of blockchain platform

  10-09-2017 22:37
  B3i, the insurance industry blockchain initiative, will next month
  start testing out technology to move a reinsurance contract online
  from cedent to reinsurer, a development that may permit cutting
  administrative costs by a third.
  In a demonstration at the Swiss Re pavilion in Monte Carlo, B3i
  showed how the technology can be deployed in the context of an
  excess of loss (XoL) property/catastrophe reinsurance contract.
  B3i said in a statement: "The platform uses state-of-the-art
  distributed ledge
  
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• Irma to cause 'natural selection': Scor's Peignet

  10-09-2017 20:09
  Scor Global P&C CEO Victor Peignet said Hurricane Irma is
  likely to "make the strong, stronger and the weak
  weaker".
  Peignet said a $50bn event would have led to a loss of 10
  percent of equity and 8 months of earnings. This year, an event
  with the same cost would lead to an equity loss of 7 percent, but a
  much larger loss of 2 years of earnings.
  He said Irma will act as a sort of stress-test for the...
  
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• Global reinsurers likely to face 2017 underwriting loss: AM Best

  10-09-2017 20:09
  The top global reinsurers can expect a full year underwriting
  loss for 2017, analysts at AM Best have said, as Hurricane Irma
  crunches into the Florida coastline.
  According to AM Best estimates, total catastrophe losses of
  $75bn for the year would result in a combined ratio of 106 percent
  for the world's top 20 reinsurers.
  Speaking at an AM Best conference at the Monte Carlo
  Rendez-Vous, Robert DeRose, a senior director at the ratings agency
  said: "There's no question that...
  
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• Former Gallagher Re CEO Gander to leave Aon Benfield

  10-09-2017 17:55
  Simon Gander, one of the most senior staff at Aon Benfield in
  London, will leave the reinsurance broker at the end of the year,
  The Insurance Insider can reveal.
  Sources told this publication that Gander's departures are
  part of Aon's Project Blue group-wide efficiency programme.As previously reported, the philosophy involves cutting cost by
  eliminating a small number of roles at a senior level, rather than
  taking out a significant amount of more junior positions.
  Gander, known in the market...
  
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• AIG first major buyer in market for post-Irma cover

  10-09-2017 17:55
  AIG released firm order terms to the market on Friday (8
  September) for a $1bn back-up catastrophe cover as it moved
  quickest in the scramble to secure what could be limited post-loss
  capacity, The Insurance Insider can
  reveal.
  New AIG CEO Brian Duperreault ordered his broker into the market
  to buy a $1bn cascading limit that sits excess of AIG's current
  cat tower, but which will drop down depending on the extent of its
  losses from Harvey and Irma.
  However,...
  
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• Lloyd's may have greater exposure to new Irma track

  10-09-2017 15:36
  Lloyd's has higher exposure to a windstorm that hits the
  county that directly abuts Tampa than it does to a Miami Dade
  event, according to realistic disaster scenarios (RDS) released by
  Lloyd's.
  The Lloyd's RDS for a Pinellas windstorm is $134bn - more
  than the $131bn indicated for a Miami-Dade storm.
  Irma has re-intensified to a category 4 event with sustained
  winds of 130mph and continued to track west, with the storm
  projected to skirt the west coast of the...
  
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• Delayed Verto broadens remit ahead of launch

  10-09-2017 15:36
  Verto, the Names-backed quota share syndicate, has applied to
  expand its original remit to include class-specific quota shares,
  The Insurance Insider can reveal.
  Thispublication reported the creation of Syndicate 2689, which was
  brought to the market by Hampden and Asta, in October last year,
  when it secured approval in principle from Lloyd's.
  However, the syndicate, which was anticipated to go live in
  January this year, has had its start-date pushed back, as it
  altered its core purpose.
  Verto o
  
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• AIR pegs Irma insured losses at $20bn-$65bn

  10-09-2017 15:05
  Hurricane Irma could result in insured losses of $20bn to $65bn, according to a preliminary estimate from AIR Worldwide.
  
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• Ward to join as head of Willis Re Specialty in US

  10-09-2017 13:14
  Former Validus CEO Conan Ward is set to join Willis Re's
  specialty business as the head of its US operations,
  The Insurance Insider can reveal.
  Sources said Ward is likely to join later this month or next
  month in the newly created role and is expected to report in to the
  Willis Re executive committee.
  Ward has been out of the market since he resigned as the head of
  Hamilton Insurance Group's US operations in October 2015 after
  18 months...
  
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• Nephila and Everest lead concentrated Florida cat treaty market

  10-09-2017 11:16
  The top five reinsurance writers in Florida assume 23 percent of
  the market's ceded premium, analysis by The
  Insurance Insider has shown.
  As Hurricane Irma bears down on the Sunshine State, analysis of
  Schedule F filings reveals a relatively concentrated cat treaty
  market, with $761mn of premium ceded to the top five reinsurance
  writers in 2016.Reinsurers of the biggest Floridian cedants will bear the brunt
  of the loss from Irma, along with their retro providers.
  The Insurance Insider pulled...
  
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• Doomsday scenario recedes as Irma tracks west

  10-09-2017 11:16
  Hurricane Irma's projected path continued to drift west on
  Sunday morning, with current forecasts showing the storm glancing
  the west coast of Florida before moving up towards the
  Panhandle.
  The current path belies the worst-case scenario predictions of
  Thursday, but still leaves the global (re)insurance market exposed
  to massive losses from the storm, which has Hurricane force winds
  extending out 70 miles (110km) from its centre.
  As of 11pm Eastern Time last night, the National Hurricane
  Center
  
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• We got a sinking feeling as Bradford & Bingley cancelled our home insurance

  10-09-2017 07:59
  Mid contract, it told us we were now ‘unacceptable’We have paid Bradford & Bingley about £600 a year for our buildings and contents insurance since we bought our little terraced house 12 years ago, and renewed again last April. We then got a call from the insurer out of the blue to say it was discontinuing the cover in nine days because its underwriters, Legal & General, had said it was “unacceptable” to keep insuring us. We think it may be because we made t
  
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