12th & 13th June 2012
The Fairmont Hamilton Princess, Bermuda
Board members of Florida’s insurer of last resort, the Citizens Property Insurance Company (CPIC) have put on hold plans to see whether it can introduce rate increases for new policies above the 10% cap imposed by legislators.
Bermudian insurers and reinsurers saw their combined net income plummet to $1.5bn last year compared with $11.4bn in 2010, as global losses took their toll on carriers’ balance sheets.
Ongoing delays with Solvency II implementing measures in Europe mean Bermuda will not be notified of whether it is considered equivalent to the new regulatory regime until the end of next year at the earliest, the head of its insurance regulator believes.
The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) chief executive, Jeremy Cox, believes the island’s insurance sector is increasing its credibility while also enhancing its global reputation, owing to the investment it is making in its regulatory infrastructure. “Reputation, as we all know, is a fragile commodity: easy to damage, hard to repair,” the head of the island’s [...]
Brian Duperreault has been appointed chairman of the advisory committee to the recently- created Federal Insurance Office (FIO) in the US. The Marsh & McLennan Companies president and chief executive’s appointment was confirmed at the committee’s first meeting last week. The Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance (FACI) has been formed by the US Treasury to [...]
Bermuda’s regulator has halved the registration fee for special purpose insurers (SPIs), as it continues its promotional push to establish itself as a leading jurisdiction for the issuance of insurance linked securities and catastrophe bonds.
Diversification can be a detriment to underwriting performance in the $200bn gross written premium global reinsurance market, according to new research by Conning Research & Consulting. Analyst Jerry Theodorou said after examining the performance of reinsurers globally over the past 10 years, it was clear specialist and “pure-play”, or monoline reinsurers, had achieved significantly better [...]
The introduction of protectionist measures such as the proposed reinsurance tax bill in the US would restrict the state of Washington’s ability to recover from an overdue large earthquake, the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) has warned.
Gross written premiums in Bermuda’s insurance sector declined 10% year on year, according to the latest statistics. The island’s regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), said this is proof the market is successfully addressing global market conditions. BMA figures show the market recorded gross written premium of $107.7bn, compared with $119.7bn 12 months earlier, which [...]
Former chairman and chief executive of XL Group, Brian O’Hara and Renaissance Re head, Neill Currie will deliver keynote speeches at this year’s Insurance Day Summit Bermuda, which will be held on the island in June. O’Hara, who at the end of last year saw XL’s flagship Bermuda headquarters renamed Brian O’Hara House in honour [...]
Industry veteran Dennis Mahoney will take up his second new board commitment in as many months after agreeing to join Ironshore. Mahoney recently joined modelling and managing general agency firm Sciemus as chairman of its board in a move which also saw him become an investor in the company.
Bermuda has recorded a 50% annual increase in the number of new carriers setting up operations on the island, with the growth spearheaded by special purpose insurer (SPI) registrations. The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) said the upsurge demonstrated the global insurance sector’s continued confidence in the island as a “world-class insurance jurisdiction”, since the results [...]
Bermuda’s reinsurance market is shaping up for a “difficult yet promising” January 1 renewals season, with the recent trend for primary insurers increasing retentions across more
Next year’s Insurance Day Summit Bermuda will take place over June 12 and 13, it has been announced.
THE JUNE 1 renewals were very much a game of chicken, and forced shortfall covering in the final days meant that the average renewal rate increase was probably above the middle of the much quoted range of 5% to 15% price increases, according to Jamie Veghte, chief executive of XL Group reinsurance operations.
Veghte was on a panel with Richard Whitt, president and co-chief executive of Markel, David Cash, chief executive of Endurance Specialty, and Tom Holst, chief executive of Ariel Re, moderated by Franklin Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America. Read More
US-based Markel has adopted an alternative investment strategy that is “a very modest version of the Berkshire Hathaway strategy”, said Markel president and co-chief executive Richard Whitt at the Insurance Day Summit Bermuda this week.
In a discussion on investment strategies, Mr Whitt said that “with dividends we’ve brought up to the holding company over the years, we’ve actually gone and purchased businesses outside the insurance industry.” Read More
One cause of the low book values being assigned to US-listed reinsurers is that, if you take out AIG and Berkshire Hathaway, the market capitalisation of the industry is now smaller than that of Apple Inc, said Jamie Veghte, chief executive of XL Group Reinsurance operations at the Insurance Day Summit Bermuda on Wednesday.
He was confident that valuations of reinsurers would go up significantly, but admitted that “we are just not on the radar screen right now”. Read More
MORE than 30% of the global capacity for the offshore liability market has disappeared since last year’s Deepwater Horizon platform loss, key stakeholders behind a new $10bn insurance facility for deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico told delegates at the Insurance Day Summit Bermuda.
Insurance market limits for those companies seeking excess liability protection for their offshore operations have also dramatically declined since the catastrophe, in some cases by as much as $750m, the audience heard. Read More
A LONDON market-style syndication and shared expense model could strengthen Bermuda’s insurance proposition, one of the island’s leading chief executives told the Insurance Day Summit Bermuda audience.
Ironshore chief executive Kevin Kelley said that while the island still boasted a “vibrant” reinsurance sector, he believed that its insurance market could be much stronger than it was at present. Read More
US-based Markel has adopted an alternative investment strategy that is “a very modest version of the Berkshire Hathaway strategy”, said Markel president and co-chief executive Richard Whitt at the Insurance Day Summit Bermuda this week.
In a discussion on investment strategies, Mr Whitt said that “with dividends we’ve brought up to the holding company over the years, we’ve actually gone and purchased businesses outside the insurance industry.”
MUNICH Re’s controversial plan to pull together a $20bn drilling liability product for the Gulf of Mexico created an unrealistic sense of available capacity among US regulators, and with proposals to lift the oil spill liability cap back on the agenda, oil companies are anxious that the same mistakes are not repeated.
According to Robert Stauffer president and chief executive of Bermudian energy industry mutual Oil Insurance Ltd (Oil), US legislators had considered using Munich Re’s aspirational $20bn figure as the basis for setting the new cap, which he said would have left only the largest oil companies able to afford cover.
HISCOX CHIEF EXECUTIVE BRONEK MASOJADA is the latest chief executive to be added to this year’s Insurance Day Summit Bermuda speaker line-up.
Masojada keynote presentation at the Summit will examine how the insurance and reinsurance sectors are responding to the dual challenges of coping with recent heavy catastrophe activity such as the Japanese and New Zealand earthquakes against the backdrop of the continuing low interest rate environment. Read More
NEW BERMUDA PREMIER Paula Cox dismissed the potential threat posed to the island’s insurance community by a beefed up version of the so-called “Neal bill” in the US, as she appealed for more international companies to come to Bermuda during an address to UK businesses.
Premier Cox told an audience of prominent members of the London business community and investors in the City that she thought US president, Barack Obama had more pressing domestic and international issues to deal with rather than pushing forwards with the bill, which critics argue imposes an isolationist tariff on international companies operating in the US. Read More
IN LIGHT of last week’s Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami, special plenary sessions outlining the implications for insurers and reinsurers have been added to this year’s Insurance Day Summit London and Bermuda programmes. Read More
WILLIS CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, JOE PLUMERI will deliver the keynote speech at this year’s Insurance Day Summit Bermuda. Read More
ARGO GROUP head, Mark Watson, Validus Re boss Conan Ward and Aon Benfield Bermuda’s Robert Bisset are the latest chief executives to be added to this year’s packed Insurance Day Summit Bermuda speaker line-up. Read More
BERMUDA’S NEW premier, the Hon Paula Cox heads up a host of influential insurance industry thinkers confirmed to speak at this year’s Insurance Day Summit Bermuda. Read More
EVAN GREENBERG, chairman and chief executive of Ace will deliver the keynote speech at next year’s Insurance Day Summit Bermuda, it has been announced. Read More
NEXT year’s Insurance Day Summit London will take place over May 17 and 18, it has been announced. Read More
