Insurance capital of the world? (Bermuda Angle).
In less than two months after September 28 last year, more than $20 billion was committed to the global insurance industry. This new capacity may be the greatest allocation of capital since the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe after World War II. In total, $12.64 billion has headed...

Reinsurance ventures rake in profits in 2002: in its first year of business, the class of 2002 turned a tidy underwriting profit with combined ratios well under 100. (Reinsurance).
It's been a good first year for the new reinsurance ventures that were formed after the Sept. 11,2001 terrorist attacks. In its first year of business, the Class of 2002 turned a tidy underwriting profit, with combined ratios well under 100. They have written a substantial amount...

Specialty Market Keeps Moving.
The need for custom coverages continues to grow, as insurers aim to keep up with changing markets in a new economy. Unique situations and determining how to insure them have made it challenging for insurers to keep pace with the ever-evolving specialty marketplace. Globalization issues and the...

Endurance Specialty Insurance. (Executive Moves).
Endurance Specialty Insurance, a Bermuda-based global provider of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, has hired two underwriting executives in its professional lines group: Mary Lou Douglas and Catherine Bennett. Douglas has more than 20 years of experience in the insurance industry. Most recently, she was the Western Region...

Henry Keeling: reinsurance and the real world; a Q&A with XL Re's CEO reveals a keen sense of how the insurance world has changed and how a Bermuda-based giant can make the most of a hardening market--for itself and its clients. (Insurance Executive).
Catching up with Henry Keeling at the recent Bermuda Insurance Symposium wasn't easy. His time for industry chat was measured out in quarters of an hour as he kept moving from meeting to meeting with an intensity one can easily discern in his high-velocity, highly focused conversation. Indeed, ask...

A Spotlight On Financial Risks.
The days of clearly defined boundaries between capital markets and insurance arenas are over. Newer specialty insurance products are emerging to insure financial risks not traditionally covered by insurance. New worlds are opening up for the specialty insurance markets. Where traditional insurance is reluctant to go, specialty...

Hard lessons: buyers of excess and surplus catastrophe property insurance were getting used to the relative comfort of softening trends, at least through the first half of 2005. But last year's hurricane season stiffened prices and abruptly hardened the marketplace, jolting prices out of their slumber.
The brutal 2005 hurricane season, which by some estimates caused more than $60 billion in property damage, is expected to raise property rates in the excess and surplus lines market by at least 20 percent in 2006, analysts and insurance industry executives say. That's good news for...

INSURANCE ONLINE.
The Atlantic Mutual Cos., New York, has added Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) compliance and loss forecasting tools to the company's online risk management Web site, RiskPoint.com (www.riskpoint.com), which was initially launched in April 1999. The OSHA Logs feature is designed to access current policyholder claims...

Executive Moves.
Suzanne M. Meehan has been appointed vice president claims consultant at Willis of Ohio, Cleveland division. In this position, she will assist in the resolution of coverage issues and lawsuits, and provide expertise in handling claims issues. Meehan previously was a vice president at the Hylant Group. She was...

Modern masters of fine art risk.
As margins shrink and the rivalry to write fine arts policies intensifies, specialty firms compete against industry insurance and brokerage giants. The prize: to handle collections belonging to museums, cultural institutions, nonprofit organizations and high-net worth individuals. As the price of art escalates and the risks increase, major insurers...