Insurer News – Page 206
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News
Motor premiums up 7.2% in Q1 – Biba/Acturis
Personal motor premiums increased by 7.2% in the first quarter of 2016 compared with the same period last year, according to the Biba/Acturis Insurance Price Index. This excludes recent rises in insurance premium tax (IPT). With the November IPT hike to 9.5% from 6% included, the ...
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News
Novae GWP grows 9.8% in first quarter despite rate pressure
Novae reported gross written premium (GWP) of £282.8m in the first quarter of 2016, up 9.8% on the £257.6m it reported in last year’s first quarter. The Lloyd’s insurer enjoyed growth across all three of its business segments. The casualty unit reported the strongest growth, where ...
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News
Allianz UK profit up 43% in first quarter
Allianz UK made an operating profit of £47.4m in the first quarter of 2016, up 43% on the £33.2m it reported in last year’s first quarter. The insurer’s combined operating ratio improved by 1.8 percentage points to 95.9% (Q1 2015: 97.7%). But gross written premium fell ...
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Online only
Carol Brady: No quick fix for CMCs
There is no “quick fix” for the increased regulation of claims management companies (CMCs), warns Carol Brady, who led the government’s recent review into the industry. Speaking at the Insurance Times Fraud Charter, Brady, a non-executive member of the Claims Management Regulation Board and chair of ...
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News
Markerstudy to launch pet aggregator site
Markerstudy is to launch a pet aggregator site, called Go Get It later this month. The company said that with its experience with pet insurance provider Ultimate, it identified a gap in the market for a price comparison site that is focused exclusively on pet insurance. ...
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News
Correction: Esure and Admiral
The executive pay article in the May 2016 edition of Insurance Times (pages 8 and 9) contained a number of factual errors about Esure and Admiral. The article incorrectly stated both the figures for the remuneration for the Esure CEO and Admiral CEO. Additionally it gave ...
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News
Barbican hires Towergate underwriter Roberts
Barbican Protect, the UK insurance arm of Barbican Insurance Group, said it has hired Alexandra Roberts (pictured) as a development underwriter, financial lines. Roberts joins Barbican Protect from Towergate Professional Indemnity where she was a senior account handler, working across a broad spectrum of professional sectors. ...
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News
Hiscox group GWP up 10.3% in six months; UK GWP up 5.8%
Hiscox saw group gross written premiums rise 10.3% to £640.5m in the six months to March, up from £561.7m a year earlier. Hiscox UK GWP rose 5.8% to £110.5m from £103.5m a year earlier, which the company described as “a strong result in a challenging market”. ...
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News
FCA fines and bans brokers over £150,253 client money blunder
The FCA has banned former insurance brokers Terence Joint and Vroni O’Brien for failings in relation to the handling and misuse of client money. Key points: Broker Joint Aviation directors fined £30,000 Joint Aviation owed £150,253 to insurers Broker transferred client money ...
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News
RSA claims handler jailed for £55,000 fraud
A former RSA employee has been jailed for 10 months for illegally passing on customer details to a law firm and adding friends and family to genuine claims in a £55,000 fraud. Anthony Francis Joseph Rattigan, 30, an insurance claim handler from Liverpool was convicted of ...
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News
Ash Bathia’s Lloyd’s insurer hires casualty underwriting head
Ash Bathia’s Lloyd’s syndicate, Probitas 1492, has hired Neila Buurman as chief underwriting officer for its casualty division. Buurman was previously director of international casualty at QBE, Bathia’s former employer. She joined QBE in 2000 as an international liability underwriter. Bathia was chief underwriting officer of ...
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News
Towergate staff in £30m incentive scheme deal
Towergate has entered its staff into an incentive scheme worth more than £30m. One part of the scheme is worth £30.4m and Towergate has already made two payments to staff, with a final tranche due later this year, The Telegraph reports. Under Towergate’s old reward scheme ...
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News
AXA unveils broker tool to tackle underinsurance in mid-market
AXA has launched an online tool to help brokers calculate the business interruption risk for individual commercial clients. Tool will help firm tackled underinsurance in mid-market AXA BI calculator is web-based tool that assesses a businesses’ BI exposure Tool intended to support prompt claim settlement The ...
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News
CPP hires new chief executive after boardroom coup
Credit card insurer CPP has hired Jason Walsh as its new chief executive to replace Stephen Callaghan, who has left following a boardroom coup by asset management firm Schroders. The move marks a return to CPP for Walsh. He worked for CPP between 2002 and 2014, ...
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Agenda
Briefing: The future is challenging for UK commercial lines insurers
Briefing by Saxon East Can things get any worse for insurers struggling for commercial underwriting profits? In a word, yes. The PRA returns reveal a grim picture: premium fell 19% to £4.4bn, and insurers’ combined operating ratio (COR) worsened to 103.6% in 2015 from 103.4% in ...
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News
ARO signs property owners’ deal with Broker Direct
ARO Underwriting has signed a property owners’ distribution deal with fellow underwriting agency Broker Direct. The deal will allow ARO to distribute its residential and commercial property owners’ products through Broker Direct’s 750 broker members. The brokers now have access to ARO’s recently launched quote-and-buy system. ...
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News
Markerstudy ends capacity deal with Brightside
Markerstudy has ended its capacity agreement with Brightside. The insurer is one of Brightside’s major capacity providers alongside Ageas. Markerstudy and Brightside have declined to comment. Last October Insurance Times revealed the scale of Brightside’s troubles as executive chairman Mark Cliff vowed to fix the problems ...
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News
Hester: RSA needed to change to survive
Recent changes at RSA may have been difficult for staff, but they are necessary to avoid a more painful outcome, according to group chief executive Stephen Hester. Speaking to Insurance Times following the release of RSA’s first quarter results this morning, Hester also said that he ...
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News
Gallagher unit gets foothold in UK motor with Gibraltar buy
Arthur J Gallagher-owned consultancy Artex Risk Solutions has bought Gibraltar-based insurance management firm Quest Holdings (Gibraltar). Artex said the acquisition expands its foothold in the European insurance market and gives it particular expertise in the UK motor market. Gibraltar-based insurers play a key role in the UK ...
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News
Beazley first quarter GWP up 7% as rates fall 1%
Lloyd’s insurer Beazley wrote gross premiums of $538m (£401.6m) in the first quarter of 2016, up 7% on the $546m it wrote in the same quarter last year. The increase came despite a 1% cut in rates in the quarter. The Lloyd’s insurer also reported a ...