Latest Australia Headlines
All the headlines from our Australia Topic Page, ordered by recency.
AXIS Estimates NZ Quake, Aus. Flood Losses at $275 to $315 Million
Mar 22 2011 // AXIS Capital Holdings Limited has issued a bulletin which estimates that the “total net impact of the New Zealand earthquake and loss events in Australia that have occurred to date in the first quarter of 2011 will...
RenRe Estimates Australia Flood Losses $30 Mn; NZ Quake $190 Mn
Mar 17 2011 // Bermuda-based RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. announced its initial loss estimates for the 2011 Australian flooding as well as the February 2011 New Zealand earthquake. The Company said it currently expects the Australian...
Montpelier Re Estimates $75 Mn NZ Quake Losses; $15 Mn Australian Floods
Mar 16 2011 // Bermuda-based Montpelier Re Holdings announced that its preliminary pretax net loss estimate from the February New Zealand earthquake will be around US$75 million, net of reinstatement premiums. The Company added that its...
Insurance Council of Australia Supports National Disaster Insurance Review
Mar 7 2011 // In a recent bulletin the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) said it “has welcomed the National Disaster Insurance Review announced by the Federal Government.” ICA CEO Rob Whelan said the National Disaster...
Business Moves
Mar 7 2011 // Lawson-Hawks, Christopher Lee Insurance Services Lawson-Hawks Insurance Associates Inc., a regional independent insurance broker based in Mountain View, Calif., acquired Christopher Lee Insurance Services of Carmel, Calif....
Tokio Millennium Re Receives Authorization for Australia
Mar 3 2011 // Bermuda-based Tokio Millennium Re Ltd. (TMR), a subsidiary of Japan’s Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd., announced that the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has authorized...
Climate Change to Drive up Food Prices
Mar 2 2011 // Global food prices are likely to keep rising as production struggles to match demand and extreme weather events become more frequent, a climate-change advisor to the Australian government said on Wednesday. Ross Garnaut...
QBE Group Posts $1.278 Billion 2010 Net Profit; $1.168 Billion Underwriting
Mar 1 2011 // The Australia-based QBE Group reported net after tax profits of *$1.278 billion for 2010, a 17 percent decrease from the $1.532 billion reported for 2009. However, the decline was almost entirely due to a drop in...
New Zealand Quake Kills at Least 65; Race to Reach Trapped Victims
Feb 22 2011 // New Zealand rescue teams worked under search lights early Wednesday to find scores of people trapped under collapsed buildings after an earthquake struck the country’s second-biggest city of Christchurch, killing at...
Australia Weather Bureau Forecasts Reduced Risk from La Nina
Feb 16 2011 // The La Nina weather pattern, which recently brought record floods and cyclones to Australia, is weakening, but there is a small risk that it could reform within the southern autumn season, Australia’s weather bureau...
Arch Capital Posts $227.7 Q4 Net Income; $816.7 Million Full Year
Feb 15 2011 // Bermuda-based Arch Capital Group reported net income available to common shareholders for the 2010 fourth quarter of $227.7 million, or $4.54 per share, compared to $284.7 million, or $4.75 per share, for the 2009 fourth...
Swiss Re Urges Australia to Use Cat Bonds as Disaster Risk Rises
Feb 10 2011 // Global reinsurance giant Swiss Re said Australia’s natural disaster risk was increasing and urged its governments to cover the rising damages bill using insurance instruments like catastrophe bonds as opposed to...
Wild Weather Could Push Miners to Heed Insurers’ Warnings; Reassess Risks
Feb 8 2011 // A surge in weather-related disasters in Australia could push global mining firms to overhaul supply contracts and rethink how bad weather will affect their operations and customers worldwide. Climate scientists say a...
Wildfires Destroy Homes in Western Australia
Feb 7 2011 // Wildfires tore through the suburbs of an Australian city on Sunday, destroying a number of homes, news reports and authorities said. There were no reports of injuries. Two fires fanned by hot summer winds were burning in...
Breckenridge Acquires Interest in Reinsurance Broker REcentis
Feb 4 2011 // Breckenridge IS Inc. has acquired a majority interest in REcentis Intermediaries LLC, a specialty reinsurance broker with offices in Westlake Village, Calif. and Sydney, Australia. REcentis has expertise in energy,...
BofA Sells Balboa Insurance Portfolio to Australia’s QBE
Feb 4 2011 // Bank of America agreed to offload its Balboa insurance portfolio to Australia’s QBE Insurance for more than $700 million, the latest in a string of asset sales by the U.S. lender as it recovers from the global credit...
AIR Estimates Yasi Insured Losses between $356 Million and $1.5 Billion
Feb 4 2011 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has issued early estimates indicating that insured losses to properties and business income from the Category 5 (Australia Bureau of Meteorology intensity scale) cyclone Yasi that...
Aon Benfield Monthly Cat Report Highlights Australian Floods, Brazil Landslides
Feb 4 2011 // Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon Corp., has released the latest edition of its Monthly Cat Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during...
Australian Natural Disasters Spark Renewed Call Action on Climate Change
Feb 4 2011 // An architect of Australia’s stalled climate change policy has linked the nation’s recent natural disasters with global warming and called for a new political push to cut carbon emissions. Ross Garnaut,...
No Comment from QBE on Report of Talks to Buy Balboa from BofA
Feb 3 2011 // QBE Insurance, Australia’s biggest insurance group, is in talks to buy U.S. insurer Balboa from Bank of America , a media report said on Thursday, sparking talk that QBE would have to sell new shares to help fund the...
