Standard & Poor’s announced that it has lowered its counterparty credit and insurer financial strength ratings on Denmark’s Copenhagen Re and its British subsidiary The Copenhagen Re Co.(U.K.) to double-‘B’ from single-‘A’-minus, but, although they remained on CreditWatch, it was …
Newark, California-based Risk Management Solutions has released “two comprehensive data products designed to quantify the risks associated with European windstorms.” The heavy losses, $14.4 billion ($7.8 billion insured), caused by the storms Lothar and Martin at the end of 1999 …
XL Capital Ltd has agreed to purchase Winterthur International from Winterthur Insurance, a subsidiary of the Credit Suisse Group. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $600 million and will be funded by XL out of current resources. Winterthur International …
With the fast approaching Nov. 20 cutoff date for bids to acquire Equitable Life, the U.K.’s oldest mutual life insurer, it appeared that only one company, the U.K.’s Prudential, remained in the running. Its main rival, CGNU, apparently pulled out …
According to a BBC report, U.K. insurers’ preliminary estimates of the claims they may face from three days of high winds and rain, which have caused extensive damage in southern England, is put at around £200 million ($293 million). But …
Plans to create a truly pan-European insurance company out of Eureko, up to now a rather loose partnership of eight European insurers, advanced significantly on Monday with the the announcement that Banco Commercial Portuges (BCP) and Holland’s Achmea will merge …
Sweden’s Skandia, Norway’s Storebrand and Finland’s Pohjola originally agreed to merge their respective p/c business into a pan-Scandinavian group with the unlikely name of “If….” Pohjola recently announced that it was pulling out of the deal, which caused analysts to …
The string of catastrophes in 1999—the worst year on record for the frequency of natural disasters—has hit the reinsurance industry solidly. This was compounded by weak premium rates, and retrocession recovery problems following the financial difficulties of a number of …
