The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has welcomed the Lord Chancellor’s agreement to a review of the discount rate. The discount rate is used to calculate the amount deducted from an injured person’s compensation to account for any income they may receive from investing their damages. The rate was set at 2.5% by the [...]
Homeowners are being urged by independent financial research firm Defaqto to review their contents insurance policy to ensure they enjoy adequate coverage for cash at home. With winter setting in and the nights becoming longer, burglaries rise just at the time of year when people tend to have more cash at home to fund Christmas [...]
Allianz Group has reported strong results for the third quarter of 2010 and confirmed its operating profit outlook for the year. Revenues increased by 11.4% from Q3 2009, to €24.5 billion, and operating profit rose by 2.3% to €2.1 billion. Property-Casualty operating profit rose 8.8% as gross premiums written increased by 3.6%, compared with a [...]
The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) is calling on the Government to implement an eight point plan to reduce the spiralling cost of motor insurance. Addressing MPs at yesterday’s Transport Select Committee inquiry, BIBA’s head of corporate affairs, Graeme Trudgill, said: “We think the key priorities for the Government should be to introduce Continuous Insurance [...]
Marsh has announced that it has signed a mutually exclusive agreement with Anglo Arab Insurance Brokers (AAIB). AAIB is the only international broker to be licensed and registered to operate in Iraq and has offices across the country. Under the terms of the agreement, the brokers will co-operate on insurance coverage, risk management and claims [...]
The vogue for increasingly expensive baby buggies has sparked a new crime wave, according to Halifax Home Insurance. Thefts of baby strollers have almost doubled in the past year, which the lender claims is fuelling a black market worth around £60 million Sales of buggies costing over £500 having increased by 40% over the past [...]
Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC) has reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2010. The firm saw income from continuing operations of $128m in Q3 (equating to $0.22 per share), down substantially from the $207m ($0.38 per share) earnt in Q3 2009. Quarterly net income was $168m ($0.30 per share), down from [...]
Aon Benfield has announced the launch of a life reinsurance hub for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. The new team will provide clients with a range of solutions, from traditional proportional and non-proportional, to non-traditional transactions, and promises to bring “cutting edge” risk management tools to the APAC life reinsurance market. The new operation will [...]
Munich Re has revised upwards its expectations of 2010 full-year profits after achieving a net profit of €1,955m in the first nine months of the year. This compares favourably to the €1,784m the firm made during the same time last year and has caused Munich Re to upgrade its 2010 annual consolidated profit forecast from [...]
Aon Benfield is highlighting what it sees as the future “critical” role of actuaries in managing emerging risks for the re/insurance industry. The intermediary believes the role of the actuary will evolve in the years ahead “to deliver more robust enterprise risk management (ERM), including designing potential scenarios rather than solely performing retrospective statistical analysis”. [...]
In an interim management statement, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has reported that the group’s recent overall trading performance is in line expectations. During the period 1st July to 8th November 2010, organic growth has been “encouraging” and the insurer and broker remains on track to make financial progress for the year as a whole. Risk [...]
American International Group, Inc. (AIG) has announced the appointment of Sid Sankaran to the position of senior vice president and chief risk officer. He joins AIG from Oliver Wyman Financial Services, where he led the Toronto office and was a partner in the Finance and Risk practice. Earlier in his career he worked for Mercer [...]
Aviva is launching a salary-exchange calculator for advisers, which can help demonstrate the benefits of salary exchange to clients. Salary exchange (also known as salary sacrifice) involves employees trading part of their salary or bonus in exchange for a pension contribution from their employer. Using the method, employees and employers pay lower National Insurance contributions, [...]
Lloyd’s of London is warning of potential problems with aircraft communication and navigational systems; malfunctioning satellites and GPS systems; and the potential shutdown of power grids, over the next few years, on account of an “increasingly turbulent” space weather forecast. Space weather is a term used to describe various disturbances that occur in near-Earth space, [...]
Hiscox has reported that gross written premiums in the first nine months of 2010 were broadly level with a year earlier, at £1.2 billion. The international specialist insurer said that business had continued to grow in its local specialty lines but had contracted in areas where rates are challenging, mainly US property insurance lines and [...]
The board of buildings repair specialist, Rok, has announced this morning that it has resolved to put the company into administration and to make an application to the Financial Services Authority to suspend the listing and trading of the company’s ordinary shares on the Stock Exchange. It is anticipated that the administration and suspension will [...]
The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) has identified the top-twenty areas of the UK affected by crash-for-cash scams during the third quarter of 2010. Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, London East, Bradford and London North retained their positions as the top six location, followed by Chester, Leeds, Oldham, Blackburn, Luton, Warrington, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Uxbridge, Harrow, Bolton, Ilford and Barking, [...]
Aviva has announced the appointment of Helen Heslop as chief financial officer and Patrick Dixneuf as chief operations officer, for Aviva Europe. Both will take up their positions on 1st January 2011 and be based in Paris, reporting to Andrea Moneta, chief executive, Aviva EMEA. Ms Heslop joins from General Electric where she was chief [...]
Crawford & Company has reported its financial results for Q3 2010, including net income of $13m, a welcome return to the black after a net loss of $39.5m in the same quarter last year. It also marks a return to profitability in 2010, following a Q2 loss of $2.5m. The firm recorded diluted earnings per [...]
As Guy Fawkes Night approaches, pet owners are being urged by Direct Line pet insurance to protect their pets from the potentially traumatic night of fireworks exploding for hours on end. Direct Line’s Claire Foster explained that pets injure themselves every year as they strain to escape the loud and bright fireworks, and many go [...]
