Lockton Companies has announced the appointment of Stephen Doherty to its Denver office as producer for the entirety of its property and casualty lines. He previously worked for consultancy firm Strategic Programs, Inc. where he held a number of senior positions in management. Earlier in his career Doherty worked for software development and IT staffing [...]
Allianz is understood to be finalising the sale of its Dresdner Bank subsidiary to Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank. In March of this year, Munich-based Allianz restructured its Dresdner business, which includes investment division Dresdner Kleinwort, in preparation for a sale. Allianz acquired Dresdner Bank in 2001 and while the latter’s private and corporate business [...]
Hardy Underwriting Bermuda has posted its first half results with pre-tax profit of £8.7 million, £0.4 million lower than during the same period last year. The slight fall in profit came despite a significant increase in gross written premium to £97 million, compared to £88.8 million for the first half of 2007. Net tangible assets [...]
Bermuda-based Castlepoint Re has agreed terms to acquire property and casualty insurer Hermitage Insurance Group in a deal worth around $135 million. Castlepoint will pay $27 million in cash plus the adjusted closing book value of Hermitage to the seller, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. Hermitage is a specialist property and casualty insurance [...]
Lloyd’s insurer Chaucer Holdings Plc has posted its first half results, with pre-tax profits down 92% on year to £3.9 million. This is compared to pre-tax profit of £47.9 million for the first half of 2007, and is the worst result for the company in two years. The London-based company was hit by reduced returns [...]
Willis Group Holdings has launched a new M&A practice in South Africa that will cater to the needs of the growing private equity sector and corporate clients. South Africa’s attractiveness for M&A has grown in recent years, with an annual increase in the amount of assets under management soaring by 46%. Willis’ new practice will [...]
Ecclesiastical has announced its interim financial results, covering the first six months of the year. Gross written premiums grew by 4.5% (£9m) compared to the previous year, reaching £210.8m However, the firm made a pre-tax loss of £21.5m, whereas in 2007 it enjoyed a profit of £28.7m. Shareholder funds fell by £11.6m to £350.3m, and [...]
Mutual society Liverpool Victoria has acquired motor insurance company Highway Insurance in a deal worth £150 million. Rumours of the takeover yesterday saw Highway’s share price soar from 49.75 pence to 63 pence. In the closing deal Highway agreed terms of 75.35 pence per share and an interim dividend of 1.65 pence per share. This [...]
Legal & General (L&G) is concerned that Britons don’t take out protection insurance because they believe they can’t afford it. In the recent survey of 1,964 adults, L&G found that 65% of respondents over-estimated the cost of taking out £150,000 worth of life cover. The group’s commercial director for housing, Karen Blatchford, points out that [...]
France-based Scor, the fifth largest reinsurer in the world, has posted a net profit of €225 million for the first half of 2008 having steered a safe course through the global credit crisis. This is an increase in profit of 24.3% compared to the €181 million net profit for the first half of 2007. Gross [...]
Aon Jauch & Hübener has announced the appointment of Andreas Bruckner to the newly created position of chief commercial officer. Bruckner is to assume the role on 1 January 2009, and leaves behind Zurich Financial Services (where he led the Global Industry Clients Division) to join the firm. He first entered the sector as an [...]
Helphire, the firm that provides rental vehicles to motorists involved in accidents, is seeking a ruling from the European Court of Justice to recover more than £5.3 million from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB). The cost of Helphire’s services is paid for by insurance companies but the MIB, which compensates the victims of uninsured drivers, [...]
Lloyds TSB has awarded the contract to build a new customer acquisition strategy for its insurance-only comparison website to Golley Slater, the Cardiff-based marketing solutions group. The firm will be developing and implementing the communications and media strategy for insurance.co.uk, which specialises in car, van, motorbike and travel cover. Golley Slater’s managing director, Sion Ashley [...]
UK-based Brit Insurance has announced its results for the first six months of 2008 with profits at less than half of what they were a year ago. The general insurer and reinsurer reported pre-tax profits for the period of £49.9 million, compared to £106.8 million for the same period last year. Despite the fall in [...]
Risk and reinsurance firm Guy Carpenter has announced that Cory Anger has been appointed as Global Structuring Chief for GC Securities. She joins the firm from investment bank Lehman Brothers, where she worked in the Insurance Products Group as a senior vice president. Earlier in her career she worked for Merrill Lynch in credit risk [...]
New figures released by one of the world’s most respected stock market analysts reveal that the credit crunch continues, with insurers and other financial providers the hardest hit. Statistics released by Standard & Poor (S&P) show that operating earnings for the 500 biggest publicly traded companies in the world fell 29% on year for the [...]
Brussels-based FRSGlobal has added risk assessment to its portfolio by acquiring Iris, a small risk management firm. FRS provides consultancy services to banks, including Citigroup, JPMorgan and HSBC, on how to meet financial regulators’ disclosure demands in different countries. Regulators have recently started requiring banks to provide detailed information on legal and financial risks across [...]
Insurance Australian Group (IAG) has post a net loss after tax of A$261 million (£121 million) for the financial year ending June 2008. Insurance profit for the Australia-based company was A$448 million, down from A$767 million last year. The fall in profit occurred despite an increase in gross written premiums to A$7.8 billion. Shareholders were [...]
