HARTFORD TO CUT BACK GLOBAL REINSURANCE OPERATIONS

Connecticut-based financial services group The Hartford is to severely cut back its international reinsurance operations as part of a new policy to focus on North American business. Five offices will shut by the end of this year, with a further three closures to follow during 2002. In total, 60 staff will lose their jobs. The group said that non-North American reinsurance writings would be limited to just three market sectors — alternative risk transfer, marine and catastrophe — although even in these classes the group would pursue “selective opportunities only”. A full range of reinsurance operations will continue in North America. Company spokeswoman Cynthia Michener rejected suggestions that the rethink had been prompted by the September 11 attacks. “We began a strategic review of our reinsurance business this past spring”, she said. “Even before the World Trade Center catastrophe this was under consideration”. Offices in Paris, Munich, Milan, Madrid and Philadelphia will close before the end of this year as reinsurance writings are focused on the group’s head office in Hartford. Two further US operations — in San Francisco and Birmingham, Alabama — will shut during the first quarter of next year, with a Taipei office to close later in 2002.