All Features articles – Page 7
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Features
No guarantees
Huge losses, downgrades and fears of corporate defaults. If ever there was a case study in the risks associated with a monoline business model, the bond insurance sector has provided it. Helen Yates reports.
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Features
When politics and insurance clash
Allstate in the dock, insurance pools with negative equity and a federal catastrophe backstop in the offing. With election fever in the air, Ronald Gift Mullins looks at an increasingly politicised US insurance market.
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Features
Black gold rush
There is a rush on. In case anyone failed to notice – reinsurance companies are scrabbling to set up shop in the Middle East. Mairi Mallon reports.
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Features
The truth about diversification
After Hurricane Katrina and her sisters wrought their destruction in 2005 the Bermuda monoline business model was never going to look good. Two and a half years on, Lee Coppack asks if diversification is all it’s cracked up to be.
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Features
Safe as houses?
The world’s largest insured catastrophe loss of 2007 occurred in Europe. Dr David Maréchal and Dr Jane Toothill warn underwriters not to underestimate the region’s loss potential.
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Features
Bucking the trend
Retro pricing fell marginally at the 1 January renewals, but it’s not a buyers’ market yet. Mairi Mallon looks at the dynamics facing a market with its own unique set of rules.
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Features
Preventing a washout
Recent events have driven flooding up the political and risk management agenda. Dr Justin Butler examines what insurers and reinsurers can do to address the issue.
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Features
Preparing for the worst
New strains of bird flu could infect a billion people within weeks and the impact of this on business will depend on preparations that should already be underway, explains James O’Brien.
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Features
The year in headlines
Helen Yates takes a look back at the top news stories from 2007. All these stories were broken first on www.globalreinsurance.com.
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Features
GR Survey: Emerging risks
From flu pandemics and terrorist attacks to dramatic fluctuations in global weather patterns, today’s organisations face a new breed of risks. Nathan Skinner presents the results from our most extensive survey yet.
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Features
A year of living dangerously
In 2007, cedants on both sides of the Atlantic were reminded that follow-the-settlements/fortunes clauses do not guarantee recovery from reinsurers. Ian McKenna and Sarra Zemmel review some of the major legal battles.
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Features
Smashing open contingent commissions
Eliot Spitzer, Neelie Kroes and now Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal have made life less than easy for brokers. Nick Thorpe examines what their investigations mean for the industry and asks how brokers will be paid in the future.
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Features
Devil’s breath
Wildfires that raged across California in October could cost the insurance industry more than $1.5bn. These blazes can no longer be considered rare, warns Tomas Girnius.
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Features
The lure of run-off
Warren Buffett has started another trend. Run-off is now in vogue with canny investors. Marcus Alcock weighs up the attractions.
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Features
Directors in the dock
Much has been made of the potential fallout from the subprime crisis on the insurance industry. Simon Goldring and John Bruce examine some of the existing and potential litigation targets.
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Features
GR Survey: Converging markets
The capital markets and the insurance industry are moving ever closer. But are risk transfer products really here to stay? Nick Thorpe presents the results from this month’s readership survey.
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Features
Capital market revolution
Capital market solutions will transform the industry, predicted delegates at our Insuring Climate Change conference. Helen Yates reports.
