Microsoft Corp’s captive insurer has agreed to pay $876,820 to the Washington state insurance department to cover unpaid premium taxes and associated interest and penalties. In May this year, Washington state insurance commissioner Mike Kreidler had ordered Cypress Insurance Co of Phoenix, Arizona, to stop transacting insurance without a licence and to pay tax on its written premiums. Cypress’s sole…
The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the US National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). CIMA said the memorandum of understanding is designed to help insurance supervisors in the US and the Cayman Islands coordinate on regulatory issues with the goal of efficient, fair, safe and stable insurance markets. It added that the agreement…
For insurance products and classes of business, there is no shortage of training and education programmes available to brokers and customers. But when it comes to international programmes, it is a very different matter. International programmes are inherently complex. When you are dealing with multiple countries, the regulations, language, currencies, risk landscape and compulsory requirements all combine to make it…
The rated captive segment remains exceptionally strong and continues to outperform its counterparts in the commercial casualty segment, according to a new study from AM Best. “Captives generally outperform the commercial market. Since they rarely seek out new, unrelated classes of business, these companies rarely stumble into poor risk selection or underpricing, and so have more consistent business profiles,” the…
Aon Benfield numbers show that 2018’s second-quarter catastrophe bond issuance was the third largest for this period in history, and will only add to global reinsurance capital that even rose after last year’s heavy nat cats as alternative funding continued to surge…
Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the global insurance industry rose in the first half of 2018, with all regions seeing growth with the exception of Europe, according to Clyde & Co…
The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has published a discussion paper on resolution funding and national insurance guarantee schemes (ISGs), favouring a minimum degree of harmonisation. EIOPA explains that there are different sources of resolution funding available for failing insurers in the EU. “The landscape of insurance guarantee schemes is also significantly fragmented, with the existing schemes differing…
An updated wildfire model for the US has been released by catastrophe risk-modelling firm AIR Worldwide. The model is designed to provide a comprehensive view of the risk of wildfire to property within the 13 westernmost states. AIR explained that “the event-based modelling approach accounts for the variability in weather in the current climate regime and its impact on fire…
German insurance managers should not expect relaxed property renewals with HDI Global at coming renewals, as its parent company Talanx sent a clear message during the Hanover-based group’s half-year results that its combined ratio is not good enough and efforts to sort out the book need to be redoubled…
The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) has told Commercial Risk Europe there is “concern” that some policies running with a renewal date beyond Article 50’s 29 March 2019 negotiating period may not be valid if no Brexit agreement is reached, with no silver bullet solution…