Bidders for Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) insurance business are now down to five. Ping An, has withdrawn from the contest, leaving Zurich, Allstate, Travelers, AIG and Allianz to battle it out. Ping An had been tipped as a strong candidate for a successful acquisition of the business, which could have provided the Chinese insurer [...]
Legal & General’s Dynamic Bond Trust has recorded a successful initial year. The £57.8m Trust, which was launched 30 April last year, achieved the 7th percentile of the Other Bond sector. Its approach is based on flexibility and unconstrained investment, and utilises the UCITS III investment powers. Legal & General’s sales director, Ben Waterhouse, has [...]
Willis Group Holdings has announced that Renato Cassinelli has been appointed to the post of employee benefits practice leader for Latin America. He joined the firm two years ago as vice president and operations director of Multinational Benefits & International Healthcare. Earlier in his career, he served with Old Mutual Financial Network and AIG. Cassinelli, [...]
The Chubb Corporation’s chief operating officer and vice chairman, Thomas Motamed, is to retire from the firm on 6 June. Just over a year later he will assume the roles of CEO and chairman of CNA Financial Corporation. It is over three decades since Motamed first started working for Chubb. Working his way up through [...]
Friendly society, LV=, has launched Mortgage & Lifestyle Protection, a new policy that provides cover against accident, sickness and unemployment. The policy offers level mortgage cover and customers can choose between level or index-linked living expenses protection. Mortgage repayments and living expenses cover can be arranged over different terms, taking into account the fact that [...]
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which resolves disputes between consumers and financial services businesses, has published data covering the 12 months to March 2008. Complaints about insurance providers doubled during the period, however disputes over mortgage endowment products fell, by 70%. The number of customers dissatisfied with their payment protection insurance increased six-fold to almost [...]
Aon Risk Services has announced that Christopher Scontras has been appointed to the post of senior vice president of the New England office. He has spent 27 years accumulating experience in the industry, and leaves behind the Bank of America to join Aon. In his previous job, Scontras served as senior vice president at Bank [...]
Willis Group Holdings has appointed Neil Getter to the position of executive vice president of Willis of New York Inc., working with the Willis Aerospace Leadership team with immediate effect. He brings with him over three decades of experience in the aviation industry. Getter leaves behind Aon, where he served as a regional practice leader [...]
Gocompare.com has joined the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA). BIBA has said it would like to see every other comparison site copy the Gocompare model. The comparison website, which was launched two years ago, tailors its search results based on an individual’s specific needs and price. It also fits in perfectly with BIBA’s desire for [...]
Fresh! Insurance, the broker founded in 2002, has transferred its trading system to Open GI, having previously been enabled by CDL. Under the terms of a four year contract, Open GI will provide support from its core back-office system in addition to certain new products such as Open-i, OpenWord and OpenAttach. The move is linked [...]
Heath Lambert Group, the independent insurance broker and employee benefits consultant, has formed a joint venture with Citation plc. The move will support the broker’s increased focus on affinity related business and at the same time expand its offering to SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) clients. Under the agreement, Heath Lambert’s clients will be able [...]
Scottish Widows has denied reports that advice it has given to a number of pension schemes could land it in the law courts. Reports in the national press this weekend have repeated allegations that Scottish Widows has been negligent in its role advising around 100 company pension schemes, which are now considering claiming compensation of [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) auction of its insurance businesses, which include Churchill and Direct Line, is reported to have attracted seven bidders so far. The bank’s advisers, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, have excluded private equity firms from the sale, which is expected to raise around £6 billion. Zurich, Allianz and Generali of Italy [...]
Heath Lambert has announced that Richard Woodall is to join the Commercial Affinity and Select Business Division as a business development executive. Woodall joins the firm from Aston Scott Ltd, and brings with him a great deal of experience in the sector. The division was launched just three weeks ago and combines sales, marketing, and [...]
Fortis Insurance has named Ron Munro as the firm’s new underwriting development manager. Munro, who is to report directly to Adam Clarke, the director of underwriting, will be tasked with the development of new insurance products to bolster the firm’s offering. It was earlier this year that Munro joined Fortis, becoming a non-executive director of [...]
Catlin Group Limited has announced that David Ibeson has been appointed to the post of chief executive of Catlin UK. His appointment requires the green light from the FSA (Financial Services Authority). Ibeson, who is presently chief executive of Catlin Syndicate at Lloyd’s, joined the firm two years when Wellington Underwriting plc was acquired. He [...]
Abbey and the IFS School of Finance have agreed a unique deal to train and accredit the entirety of Abbey’s underwriting staff. Workplace activities and e-learning will be involved in the qualifications, as will face-to-face courses and assessments. Abbey’s underwriters will have two possible options to choose between. The first is the Certificate level qualification [...]
