Reinsurance rates may be edging higher only now, but the companies’ shares could still surge amid investor hopes that disasters, including Japan’s earthquake, will result in much higher rates in the future. Going into 2011, brokers and analysts estimated it …
The first part of this article appeared on the IJ’s web site on April 5. PRICE PRESSURE Earthquakes may not be linked to each other, but they are linked to the financial markets, as anyone who has invested in insurers …
Michael Korn is a popular person these days, which is perhaps not too surprising considering what he does for a living and where he lives. Korn is an insurance broker in earthquake-prone San Francisco. “We’re pretty busy,” he said of …
Risk modeling company AIR Worldwide tightened its estimate for insured losses from the Japan earthquake and tsunami, as one analyst said reinsurers did not appear to be raising rates fast enough to compensate for the March 11 disaster. AIR estimated …
The man widely seen as the leading successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway has resigned after buying shares in chemical company Lubrizol Corp. before pushing Buffett to acquire it. David Sokol’s resignation is a reputational blow for Buffett, the …
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway took nearly $1 billion in writedowns on three stocks last quarter under pressure from U.S. regulators who disagreed with the company’s accounting for losses in those shares, according to a series of letters released Monday. The …
Risk modeling company AIR Worldwide tightened its estimate for insured losses from the Japan earthquake and tsunami, as one analyst said reinsurers did not appear to be raising rates fast enough to compensate for the March 11 disaster. AIR estimated …
Losses from the Japanese earthquake will reduce insurers’ capital reserves, insurance brokers said Tuesday, as sector shares continued their sharp declines on fears the disaster’s size could grow. Ace, a leading insurer and reinsurer, warned the Japanese earthquake would cause …
Investors sold insurance shares Monday in fear of how high the total losses from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami will go, though it will take weeks to determine how much was actually lost. At least one set of experts pegged the …
The unexpected nature of this week’s earthquake in Japan, plus the damage from the subsequent tsunami and fires, makes estimating insured losses from the disaster especially difficult, senior executives at two top catastrophe risk modeling firms said Saturday. About $24 …
