High catastrophe losses and the continuing international credit crisis pushed property catastrophe rates up by 8 percent at the January 1, 2009, reinsurance renewals period, according to a briefing on global reinsurance market conditions published by Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC, the leading global risk and reinsurance specialist. Cats and Credit Push Prices Up: Global [...]

Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC, the leading global risk and reinsurance specialist, today published 2008 Catastrophe Update, a briefing about the catastrophe reinsurance marketplace in 2008. The briefing, available on www.GCCapitalIdeas.com, Guy Carpenter’s new intellectual capital website, states that the high frequency and severity of Atlantic hurricanes in 2008, coupled with other weather-related and man-made [...]

Based on the considerable credit market contraction and the uncertainty regarding the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund’s (FHCF) ability to fund its claims-paying capacity, A.M. Best Co. has placed several insurers’ ratings under review with negative implications. (See below for a detailed listing of the companies and ratings.)
These rating actions are a follow-up to a press [...]

PartnerRe Ltd.announced that David Zwiener has been appointed to fill a vacancy on its Board of Directors effective July 7, 2009.
Mr. Zwiener, aged 54, is an experienced insurance industry executive. Between 2000 and 2007 Mr. Zwiener was President and Chief Operating Officer of the property and casualty operations at Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. In [...]

Universal Insurance Holdings, Inc, a vertically integrated insurance holding company, announced that it has been named to the Fortune Small Business magazine 2009 ‘FSB 100′ list of ‘America’s fastest-growing small public companies.’ Universal Insurance Holdings ranked #2 on the list, which can be found at the following Web address: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb100/2009/full_list
According to Fortune Small Business, the [...]

Zurich North America Commercial’s Accident & Health (A&H) group and Presidio Reinsurance Group announced today their formation of a strategic relationship to provide a broad range of risk-relief programs to the health care market.
As industry leaders with a long-term commitment to the accident and health industry, Zurich and Presidio will leverage their extensive portfolio of [...]

RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. announced the successful completion of the “Safe Homes for All” Risk Mitigation Leadership Forum, held in Washington, D.C. on June 24th. The Forum’s principal sponsors were RenaissanceRe’s affiliate, WeatherPredict Consulting Inc. and the RenaissanceRe Risk Sciences Foundation, together with leading non-profit organizations Federal Alliance for Safe Homes – FLASH®, the Institute for [...]

Flagstone Reinsurance Holdings Limited announced today that it has made an offer to the Board of IPC Re to acquire all of IPC’s outstanding shares. Flagstone’s offer is superior to the pending offer made by Validus on both a market value and tangible book value per share basis, and offers a superior value proposition [...]

The ongoing recession is taking a toll on the U.S. workers’ compensation industry, but that bane is not without a boon as well. Job cuts, particularly in construction and manufacturing, are putting downward pressure on revenue from written premiums. “It’s certainly clear that the premium base will be declining,” Harry Shuford, chief economist for the [...]

Max Capital Group Ltd.commented on the second amended offer by Validus Holdings, Ltd. in Validus’s hostile takeover bid for IPC Holdings, Ltd. The latest by Validus fails once again to provide IPC shareholders with a financially attractive outcome. In addition, it offers no realistic path to complete a transaction. This change by Validus today of [...]