From the category archives:

News

US airways crash

by Jolyon on 15 January, 2009

One Janis Krums (a man) went to rescue people from the Hudson, and sent this picture via Twitter, believed to be the first of the crash.
Citizen journalism — and perhaps useful to crash investigators and insurers.

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EU v. S&P

by Jolyon on 13 January, 2009

Apparently,
EU regulators believe that S&P could be abusing its monopoly position by charging EU-based financial groups a license fee to use international securities identification numbers (ISIN) that allow access to information from services such as Thomson, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
Funny this, when there are so many other things that present themselves as targets when considering the [...]

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Moving on

by Jolyon on 22 December, 2008

Today was my last day with the old firm. I learned a lot while I was there, but an opportunity came up that was too good to let go.
As from 5 January 2009, I shall be with the London office of Sedgwick Detert Moran & Arnold LLP. I used to work with Mark [...]

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Madoff investors may have to repay cash

by Jolyon on 15 December, 2008

From the WSJ via Clusterstock, it seems that even investors who cashed out of Madoff’s schemes ahead of time may have to divvy up.
[B]ecause Madoff is thought to have run a Ponzi scheme, investors could get money back from other Madoff investors who already took money out,” said Brad Alford, who runs Atlanta-based investment adviser [...]

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Beresfords solicitors struck off for dishonesty

by Jolyon on 11 December, 2008

Last year, Jim Beresford was the top earning solicitor in the UK. Now, he and fellow Beresfords partner Doug Smith have been struck off for dishonesty in dealing with miners’ compensation claims.

>The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ruled that they entered into a “sham” arrangement with the UDM, failed to act in the best interests of their [...]

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Guru

by Jolyon on 10 December, 2008

The excellently immodestly-named “Reinsurance Guru” (aka “1212″ ??) has rejigged and redesigned his website.
Go see, as it’s a good source of fast-moving news from the industry.

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Reinsurers to benefit from rate hikes

by Jolyon on 8 December, 2008

Citi analyst Joshua Shanker said reinsurers might get rate increases of as much as 10 percent for 1/1 renewals.
Shankar cited the following factors:
* investment losses,
* large storms,
* accumulated casualty loss trends and
* financial difficulties faced by several of the industry’s largest commercial insurers and reinsurers
as explaining the position, to which I would also add [...]

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Hiscox quit Bermuda for US

by Jolyon on 3 December, 2008

A couple of years back, Hiscox were all for Bermuda.
Now they are pulling out and expanding in the US.
What gives?

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Amlin drops credit cover

by Jolyon on 1 December, 2008

As from 1/1 Amlin will be out of the credit insurance market (Source: FT).
While they only have less than 5% market share, it’s a further indication of difficulties in the sector, and perceived difficult times ahead for the wider economy.
CEO, Charles Phillips, said that while getting reinsurance for credit insurance was becoming more [...]

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Woe, woe and thrice woe

by Jolyon on 29 October, 2008

Just when the financial world is giving us severe grief, it looks like we are going to get bitten by Peak Oil, after all.
The International Energy Agency is shortly to publish its annual World Energy Outlook (12 Nov) but the FT has a sneak preview.
Basically:
1. without investment, the natural annual rate of output decline is 9.1%
2. even [...]

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