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Articles for October 2008
Sub-prime crisis offers crucial lessons for insurers
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06 October 2008
The crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market and the wide reaching effect that the securitisation of residential mortgages has had on the insurance and banking industries has brought sharp focus to the desirability or otherwise..
Asia
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06 October 2008
Hong Kong insurer downgraded
Rating agency Moody’s has downgraded the debt ratings of Hong Kong credit insurer, China Orienwise following the announcement of an investigation into alleged fraud at its parent company Credit Orienwise Group by..
Europe
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06 October 2008
Axa CS locates global support unit in Ipswich
Axa Corporate Solutions (Axa CS) has established a back office support unit for its international operations in Ipswich in the UK. The office will handle all the financial..
US
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06 October 2008
Torus acquires E&S insurer
The London market and Bermudian specialty underwriter Torus Insurance Holdings will acquire the US excess and surplus lines insurer, Praetorian Specialty Insurance Company (PSIC) from QBE Americas. PSIC is licensed to write..
International
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06 October 2008
Willis Re announces P&I unit
Reinsurance broker Willis Re has launched a Protection & Indemnity (P&I) and Marine Mutual Reinsurance unit as part of its Specialities Marine Division. Willis Re is the reinsurance arm of the..
Aviation
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06 October 2008
14.9, crash, fatalities
Russia: a Boeing 737- 500 airliner crashed near the Ural mountains, killing all 88 passengers and crew on board, 21 of them foreign nationals. The aircraft, operated by Russia’s national airline Aeroflot and..
Natural catastrophes
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06 October 2008
9.9, Hurricane Gustav
US: a single scrap metal company was responsible for all of about 70 barges and ships that floated loose in a major city canal during hurricane “Gustav,” threatening flood walls and a bridge,..
Marine
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06 October 2008
10.9, explosion
Singapore: a shipyard worker was injured in an explosion during welding work on pontoon Orion 1505 in the Pandan Road yard. The explosion ripped off part of the pontoon and sent an Indian worker..
Liability, awards and settlements
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06 October 2008
10.9, ferry accident, jury recommendation
US: a federal jury recommended that a passenger crippled in the accident involving ferry Andrew J.Barberi in Staten Island in 2003 should receive nearly US$23.0mn for his past and future medical..
Property damage and business interruption
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06 October 2008
12.9, gas pipeline fire
Mexico: a gas pipeline caught fire in an accident near the capital, sending flames more than 100 ft into the air and closing a main highway into the city. Two men were..
Late reports
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06 October 2008
4.9, helicopter crash, investigation
United Arab Emirates: an investigation was launched by the Dubai police and civil aviation authority into the cause of a fatal crash on Sep 3 of a Bell 212 helicopter on an..
Everest Re Group
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06 October 2008
The Bermuda based Everest Re group saw a marginal decline (0.2%) in its net income from a profit of $840.8mn in 2006 to a profit of $839.3mn in 2007. But last year was a little..
Making the transition from state monopoly to free market
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06 October 2008
At the end of 2007, the former monopoly insurer Syrian Insurance Company (SIC), had a 60% share of the total insurance market; life, health and non-life combined.
Since then, the capture by the private insurance market..
Strong gains for some stocks despite negative news for sector
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06 October 2008
This is not only because of insurance sector specific negative factors such as insured damage caused by Hurricane Ike and Gustav over the previous three weeks and the highly public $85.0bn bailing out of AIG,..
World Bank unit buys stake in Peruvian microinsurer
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06 October 2008
The World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, has taken a 16.5% stake in Protecta, Peru’s first insurer specialising in microinsurance. The company was set up last March by the local ACP financial..
AIG’s local units insist it is “business as usual”
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06 October 2008
The Latin American subsidiaries of AIG have been forced to defend their positions in the wake of the beleaguered US insurance giant AIG’s recent rescue by the federal authorities. In Chile, Seguros Interamericana denied press..
Two new ventures propose to fill the gap of collapsed mutual
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06 October 2008
Hungary’s 2007 total premium income increased by 12.1% to HUF930.3bn from 2006, well in excess of the 8% rate of inflation. Life insurance again increased faster, at 20.9% to HUF508.7bn and now accounts for 54.7%..
New laws expose Europe to US-style class actions, broker warns
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06 October 2008
Liability insurers in Europe would be well advised to watch rulings on product liability, environmental regulation, and new levels of oversight. This was the view of Guy Carpenter managing director George Carrington as he introduced..
Non-life insurance drives growth in Spain
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06 October 2008
The Spanish insurance market grew by 3.1% last year to €53.97bn (US$78.04bn), according to figures published by Fundacion Mapfre, the nonprofit making shareholder of the demutualised insurance group. This included €30.96bn ($44.77bn) of non-life business..
Insurers struggle to find signs of life in flat market
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06 October 2008
Sales of individual life insurance policies in the second quarter of 2008 were 2% down on the same period last year and flat for the half year, according to new research. And, in its quarterly..
US catastrophes start to add up but prices remain unaffected
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06 October 2008
Latest estimates of insured losses from hurricane Ike put the claims cost in the region of US$7-$12bn, adding to an already above-average year for US catastrophe losses. But rating agencies say that the increased number..
Underwriting profits slump 96% in six months
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06 October 2008
The US non-life reinsurance industry posted sharply reduced underwriting profits and lower investment earnings in the first half of 2008 but overall profitability for the sector remained higher than the prior-year period, according to a..
Page turners – TCF and customer magazines
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06 October 2008
Insurance companies in the UK are prolific users of direct mail. In the first three months of 2008 a total of 117.45 million mailings were sent by insurance companies, a rise of 3.4% on the..
Transatlantic forms special AIG action committee
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06 October 2008
Reinsurance group Transatlantic Holding’s has formed a special committee of its board of directors to evaluate any proposals from AIG relating to the possible sale of AIG’s 59% stake interest in the company.
The Special Committee..
VAT reform gets go-ahead
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06 October 2008
Given the gravity of the Wall Street crisis exemplified by the rescue of the AIG Group by the US federal authorities, the European Parliament felt able to rubber-stamp relatively modest reforms concerning the way VAT..
Caribbean
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20 October 2008
Hurricane Ike triggers pool payment
Turks and Caicos has received a US$6.3mn payment from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) following losses caused by Hurricane Ike in September this year. The payment is the first..
Asia
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20 October 2008
Insurers poised to withstand profit drop
Asia’s insurance industry will face significantly reduced profits over the next year, according to Standard & Poor’s. The rating agency said the industry’s operating performance in 2008 is “likely to..
Europe
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20 October 2008
MEPs agree Solvency II draft
The European Parliament committee overseeing Solvency II has agreed to the draft rules, adding several amendments to the text proposed by the European Commission in July last year. The Committee on..
Insurance IT strategy: planning for a world that has changed
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20 October 2008
There is not doubt that the impact of the current financial crisis will effect insurers the world over for years to come. Here, insurance information technology (IT) analysts Mike Fitzgerald, Donald Light, Catherine Stagg-Macey and..
US
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20 October 2008
Travelers sells London run-off unit
The Travelers Companies Inc’s St Paul Fire and Marine Insurance is to sell Unionamerica Holdings Ltd to a UK subsidiary of Bermudian headquartered Enstar Group. Through its UK subsidiary Royston Run-Off..
International
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20 October 2008
ILS market defies economic turmoil
Insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuers must take steps to broaden their client base if the market is to reach its full growth potential, according to a new report by the World Economic..
Aviation
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20 October 2008
23.9, incident
Japan: two fragments that appeared to be part of an engine on an Air India jetliner fell from the aircraft and hit two cars near Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture. No one was injured..
Natural catastrophes
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20 October 2008
23.9, Hurricane Ike
US: officials from Galveston were set to ask the US Congress for about $2.2bn in disaster relief to repair the battered island’s port, save a major research hospital from going under and rebuild..
Marine
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20 October 2008
24.9, cutting of air ducts, fatalities
UK: asphyxiation killed two seafarers in the forward store of a Latvian general cargo vessel Sava Lake, after an earlier crew cut the flexible bellow pieces with the effect of..
Liability, awards and settlements
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20 October 2008
25.9, congestion, application for court order
Saudi Arabia: Saudi importers and businessmen filed an application to the Governor of Jeddah against Jeddah Port Authority, Customs officials and other cargo handling companies for slow and poor offloading..
Property damage and business interruption
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20 October 2008
24.9, fire
US: Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP said a fire shut its Pasadena oil terminal in Texas, which connected refineries from along the Gulf Coast to pipelines serving the eastern and Midwest U.S. The blaze..
Late reports
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20 October 2008
21.9, air crash, fatalities
Mozambique: a private South African registered Piper Seneca PA 34 aircraft, which ran out of fuel, crash-landed in a Mozambizan suburb, killing seven South Africans on board. A Mozambique state television report..
Swiss Re
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20 October 2008
A record-breaking net income result in 2006, boosted by the inclusion of the GE Insurance Solutions acquisition and low catastrophe losses, was hard to beat and in 2007 Swiss Re’s net income ended 9% down..
Squaring up to the regulatory challenge
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20 October 2008
The Macedonian insurance market at the end of 2007 comprised 12 companies. Of these, there were two life companies, nine were purely non-life, and one company, QBE Makedonija, was essentially a non-life writer and licensed..
Record reduction in market capitalisation of insurers
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20 October 2008
The two week period ending 9th October must rank as one of the worst, if not the worst, on record for insurance and reinsurance stocks. Companies in the sector recorded an average loss in their..
AIG seeks single buyer for Latin American units
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20 October 2008
Spain’s CASER group has announced that it is looking for “foreign opportunities” and particularly referred to Latin America as an area of interest. It added that it might undertake market penetration in conjunction with a..
Public out cry after pension fund losses
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20 October 2008
Although privatised individual pension schemes have by now spread to many other countries in Latin America and beyond, Chile’s private pension system which was launched in the early 1980’s continues to be regarded as the..
Mitsui Sumitomo dumps joint venture partner to go it alone
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20 October 2008
After the near 10% economic growth rates from earlier years, Vietnam’s economy is currently moving at a slower pace, although growth was still 6.5% during the first half of 2008.
After earlier double digit growth in..
Arthur Rogers (1943-2008)
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20 October 2008
It is particularly fitting that the last article Arthur Rogers produced before his untimely death at the age of 65 (‘EU Financial Services Regulations: VAT reform gets go-ahead”) made the front page of World Insurance..
Swiss Re launches on-line weather risk facility
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20 October 2008
Swiss Re is providing weather insurance cover to small and medium sized businesses in Europe via the internet. The service is provided through a company called CelsiusPro AG.
Companies can insure themselves against unusaully hot or..
Forum sees limited secondary market seen as major obstacle to growth in insurance linked securities
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20 October 2008
There is ample room for growth in insurance linked securities (ILS), said a recent report by the World Economic Forum, the group responsible for organising the annual Davos meeting.
According to the Forum, the market for..
Insurers less reliant on investment income
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20 October 2008
AIG notwithstanding, insurance companies are considered reasonably well protected from the current crisis sweeping the financial markets.
The main reasons for this state of affairs are that insurers have a strong cash flow in the form..
Combined ratio hit by mortgage-related losses and catastrophes
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20 October 2008
The US property/casualty (p/c) insurance industry saw its pre-tax profits slump by 48% in the first half of 2008 as increased catastrophe claims and soaring losses for mortgage and other financial guarantee insurers continued to..
Risk based models, assumptions and priorities
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20 October 2008
September was a hard month for the global economy. Last week, in his speech to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC last week Robert B. Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group considered..
XL sees off rumours
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20 October 2008
A collapsing share price inspired by rumours of large investment losses was what prompted XL Capital to make an exceptional statement about its financial position on 10 October. Chief executive Mike McGavick readily acknowledged this..
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