October 2016/1

Markel and Allied World have ended advanced talks over a transaction that could have reignited major M&A activity in the specialty P&C sector, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

RFIB, the London market broker backed by private equity house Calera Capital, has made an approach to acquire venerable Lime Street peer Tysers, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

You can see on paper why private equity houses look at the London market broking space and see a sector crying out for a roll-up strategy.

We Londoners come better prepared for a visit to New York than most US citizens.

Shariah-compliant managing general agency Cobalt will go before the Franchise Board in mid-October with a view to securing approval for its Lloyd's start-up, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Although precise details of curtailed M&A talks between Markel and Allied World are being closely guarded, the discussions again highlight the logic of further consolidation in a fragmented industry with a challenging operating outlook.

Underwriters worn down by almost three-and-a-half years of significant rate softening in the excess and surplus lines (E&S) property space are beginning to talk about walking away from business, as margins approach unsustainable levels.

For all the talk at Napslo meetings of underwriting pain in the depths of the soft market, the gossip at the bar was dominated by tales of company-swapping in the E&S property sector.

A string of property moves between several E&S carriers added intrigue to the otherwise gloomy tone of meetings for underwriters at the Napslo annual convention in Atlanta last week.

Tokio Marine HCC has exited the US builders' risk market in a demonstration of the extremely soft pricing conditions being experienced in the business line, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

The energy market is likely to continue softening into 2017 as huge overcapacity bears down on rates, according to JLT.

The contrasting reactions to the damage to the Kwame Nkrumah floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel in June this year and the Gryphon North Sea FPSO loss of 2011 show the extent to which overcapacity is dictating the market's moves.

In a momentous hearing at New York's Supreme Court, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg has taken the stand to give evidence in a decade-old suit accusing the 91-year-old executive of fraud.

The North American mutual market is a paradoxical place - ripe for disruption and afflicted by a creeping cost base, but still reluctant to change.

Aviation industry executives have named failure of critical IT systems as the risk which most concerns them, according to a report from Willis Towers Watson.

Claims management is not high enough on the agenda of priorities for the London market's Target Operating Model (Tom), XL Catlin chief experience officer Paul Jardine has claimed.

US says no to SII equivalence: FIO; Meranti losses could hit $1.15bn: AIR; Besso Ebitda rises 15% in 2015; France attempts to lure insurers; Wray returns; Castel launches division; Gable posts H1 loss

The Insurance Insider's expanded coverage universe of P&C carriers booked an average share price rise of 5.4 percent during the third quarter of 2016, probably outstripping growth in book value per share.

Reinsurers struggled to deliver underwriting profitability at their Singapore businesses in 2015, with a weighted average combined ratio of 104 percent, 4.7 percentage points higher than the year before.

Pension funds and retail investors have been using multi-asset funds to help meet their return targets for years, but the idea has struggled to gain traction in non-life insurance circles

London-listed shares within our expanded coverage universe experienced the largest increases during the past month, while dollar-denominated stocks found themselves towards the bottom of the pile

Share price data on The Insurance Insider's universe of P&C (re)insurers

Aon Securities has named an executive from the company's insurance management division, Darren Bailey, to lead the London-based capital markets business, sister publication Trading Risk revealed last week

Top 10 ILS manager and reinsurer sidecar investor Stone Ridge Asset Management reported that its net asset base had reached $4.95bn by the end of July, up 4 percent from the end of the prior quarter

The cat bond market is likely to recover from the shrinking that occurred in the first half of 2016, according to panellists at the Trading Risk Monte Carlo roundtable

Insurers are anxiously watching the path of Hurricane Matthew as the storm tracks towards the mainland US, prompting comparisons with the $6bn loss from Hurricane Irene in 2011.