外国保险资讯.docx

Premium growth aids Validus' 63% rise in profits
保费增长使Validus集团利润上涨63%
Validus Holdings Ltd.’s profits for the first half of 2009 grew 63%, due mainly to strong premium growth and a near-absence of major loss events, the company said.
Validus reported first-half net income of $232.5 million, compared with $142.4 million in the same period last year. For the second quarter, its net income was $137.6 million, up from $75.9 million a year earlier.
Net premiums written for the first half totaled $900.1 million, a 10.4% increase. The company reported a combined ratio of 73.5%. Investment income for the first half totaled $53.7 million. Net realized investment losses for the first half were $26.1 million, compared with a $5.3 million gain a year earlier.
In addition, Validus said it experienced an $11 million loss related to the Air France crash in the second quarter.
“This has been an excellent quarter with very high earnings driven by growth in our noncatastrophe business globally,” Validus Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ed Noonan said in a conference call with investors Thursday. “We continue to see positive rate movements in the vast majority of the classes we underwrite,” he said.
The Hamilton, Bermuda-based insurer and reinsurer, which recently won a bitter battle to acquire fellow Bermuda-based reinsurer IPC Holdings Ltd., said it is “on pace” to close the transaction in the third quarter.
For the second quarter, the company reported $15.9 million of nonrecurring expenses related to the IPC amalgamation.
The $1.65 billion cash-and-stock deal raised concerns with some analysts about the combined entity’s large concentration of catastrophe-exposed business as the U.S. hurricane season is under way.
Mr. Noonan said Validus has done a “significant amount of hedging in anticipation of combining the two portfolios. As we approach wind season, in total we have $250 million of protection in place,” he said.
As part of the deal, Validus has given up termination rights in the event of a catastrophe loss, meaning it cannot back out of the acquisition should a loss occur. IPC requested the provision.
In an interview last week, Mr. Noonan said he was “not concerned” about completing a takeover during the hurricane season “because both companies are very conservative underwriters.” In addition, “IPC is extremely well-capitalized for the risks they take on,” he said.
Mr. Noonan said Validus aims to reduce catastrophe exposures to roughly 25% of the combined Validus-IPC book of business. Currently on a pro-forma basis property catastrophe business accounts for roughly 40% of the combined entity.

Validus集团2009年上半年利润增长63%，公司称这主要是因为保费大幅上涨和近期没有发生损失严重的事件
Validus报告上半年的净收入是2.325亿美元，而去年同期这一数字仅为1.亿424万美元第二季度的净收入为1.亿376万美元，比去年同期多7590万美元。
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Rims targets global standards-setting role
风险与保险管理协会致力于扮演全球标准制定者的角色
THE Risk and Insurance Management Society (Rims) has set up a 10 man committee tasked with supporting global risk management and developing improved standards and processes.
Rims hopes its new Standards and Practices Committee will enable it to increase its profile in the standards and practices arena and make it the primary resource in shaping and developing global risk management standards.
The committee’s primary role will be to educate risk managers and organisations on various risk management standards. It will also work with the US Department of Homeland Security on voluntary preparedness and business continuity.
Wayne Salen, a member of Rims’ board of directors and director of risk management at Labor Finders International, will serve as the first board liaison for the committee.
The committee is chaired by Carol Fox, former chair of Rims Enterprise Risk Management development committee and senior director of risk management at Convergys Corp. She will be supported by Manus O’Donnell, administrative vice president and director of corporate insurance and risk at M&T Bank.
The other members of the Standards and Practices Committee all have strong risk management backgrounds. They are: Nathan Bacchus, Rims’ state and regulatory affairs associate; Susan Barry, director of risk management at DRS Technologies; Sandra Bodensteiner, claims manager at the City of St Paul, Minnesota; Kristen Drobnis, senior vice president of risk management at MassDevelopment; Lois Gardiner, director of risk management at Canadian Pacific Railway; Yvette Ho Sang, risk management analyst at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; and Paul Piazza, risk manager at Honeywell International Inc.
风险与保险管理协会已组成10人委员会，主要任务是支持全球风险管理并完善改良后的标准和过程
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AIG finance arm cuts 900 jobs, sees sixth straight loss
由于连续六个季度亏损，美国国际集团消费金融部裁员900人
Posted On: Aug. 13, 2009 2:00 PM CST
NEW YORK (Reuters)—American International Group Inc.'s money-losing consumer finance unit on Thursday said it eliminated 900 jobs and closed 145 branches in the first half of the year, and may make further cutbacks as it prepares to be sold.
In a regulatory filing, American General Finance Corp. said its quarterly loss increased sevenfold to $227.2 million from $31.8 million a year earlier, as revenue declined 32%.
American General has lost $467.8 million this year, after losing more than $1.3 billion in 2008. It has lost money for six straight quarters.
The job and branch cuts represent about 11% of the year-end totals that the Evansville, Ind.-based company had reported. American General said it ended 2008 with 7,900 employees and 1,374 offices, a separate filing shows.
"We may implement further measures to preserve our liquidity and capital, including additional on-balance sheet securitizations, portfolio sales, expense reductions, branch closures, and reductions in production," the company said. It said it expects to have enough liquidity for at least a year.
An AIG spokeswoman said American General decided on the job cuts in May and attributed them to the economic downturn.
AIG posted a second-quarter profit last week. The New York-based insurer is trying to sell assets to help repay the government, after accepting a series of federal bailouts totaling roughly $180 billion.
美国国际集团周四发表声明：其消费金融部门由于亏损已经在上半年裁员900人，关闭145家分支结构，且可能会在准备出售过程中进一步缩减规模。

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USAA to Lower Homeowners Rates for Most Policyholders in Texas
联合汽车服务协会拟降低德州大部分保险客户的家庭保险费率
San Antonio, Texas-based USAA has announced it has filed a plan with the Texas Department of Insurance to reduce its homeowners insurance rates in the state by an average of 6 percent.
The reduction will equate to an average $83 in annual savings for Texas policyholders, the company said. Not all areas of the state will see lower rates. Some coastal areas will likely see rate increases. However, USAA said it is increasing the availability of wind coverage it offers homeowners in certain coastal areas.
USAA also is planning to provide more comprehensive coverage, including water backup and increased limits for theft of jewelry, along with additional discounts and other features in its standard insurance policies for Texas homeowners.
The changes will be effective Oct. 10 for new policies and Dec. 31 for renewing policies, and will vary depending on discounts, geographic area and other factors. While rates for most USAA members will be lower, some will see rates increase, including in areas where the company needs to continue to match its rates with risks presented by projected hurricane losses.
USAA provides insurance coverage for more than 280,000 homes across Texas.
Source: USAA,
总部位于德州的联合汽车服务协会宣布与德州保险部门共同制订了一个计划：平均减少德州家庭保险费率的6%

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Seeking to Boost Agency Business, Progressive Offers Web Site Help
为推进保险代理业务，美国前进保险公司提供网站建设帮助
Progressive Insurance wants to ramp up its agency business and plans to turn to a source of strength for its direct sales channel - the Internet - to help make that happen.
As Glenn M. Renwick, president and chief executive officer at Progressive, said in a conference call with investors on Aug. 12: "Regardless of how you choose to buy, we are all aware ... that the vast majority of people start their insurance shopping experience on the Internet."
That sentiment - and the fact that more than half of its independent agents don't have Web sites - has led the company to roll out an initiative to provide Progressive agents who don't have Web sites or are unhappy with their existing sites the opportunity to create or improve their online presence at a discounted price.
Progressive said it found through a recent survey that while three-fourths (73 percent) of consumers look online for car insurance, about two-thirds (67 percent) eventually buy from an agent.
To help agents develop or improve their Web sites, Progressive is working with W, which not only designs and creates sites for small- and medium-sized businesses, but also offers a do-it-yourself SiteBuilder product, according to the Progressive announcement. The firm also provides search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) solutions, tools that make Web sites more visible in online search engines.
In a letter to shareholders regarding the second quarter of 2009, Renwick said the company's combined ratio for the quarter held at 92.6 and that it experienced 4 percent year-over-year increase in personal lines policies in force. Progressive's total number of personal lines policies is approaching 11 million, Renwick said.
Overall, the company has seen modest growth in its agent-produced business, Renwick said in the letter to shareholders. He surmised that some of that growth extends from possible rate increases by competitors, something that Progressive has been able to keep a lid on. Renwick said in the conference call the company has been able to keep its rate changes at around 1 percent.
"Our competitiveness appears to be increasing modestly as others are taking rate in the channel," Renwick stated in the shareholders letter. "The rate-comparison nature of agent quoting makes price transparency very clear and changes in competitive positioning very rapid - it also increases the penalty for pricing inaccuracies for the companies displayed. New business sales in agency were as strong as we have seen for some time as the quarter drew to a close."
According to Renwick, the company is particularly concerned about the performance of its agency business in California.
"We've not been happy with our production there," Renwick said during the call with analysts, adding that it is one of the states in which its agency business "is underperforming expectations, primarily on a volume basis."
However, he noted that profitability levels in California are good and that the direct sales channel is thriving. "It's one of a few states ... where our direct production is actually greater than our agency production. ... We are seeing continuous movement in California as far as their willingness to look at and accept things like mileage based rating ... nothing overly dramatic yet, but those are things that could actually play to our favor."
Renwick and Brian Domeck, Progressive's chief financial officer, commented in the conference call that the company has been building initiatives to reinforce renewal rates and extend policy life expectancies.
Progressive's "internal focus on retention has been an extraordinarily dramatic change in focus," Renwick said. "We have treated the renewal customer very differently by introducing things that might be more in the line of a loyalty program."
The company has also strived to make it easier for customers to consult about their policies. The "huge internal focus on what we can do for the customer experience around renewal ... there's no question that has actually produced results," Renwick said.
A second area of focus for Progressive is stabilization of rates for renewals. "We are trying where possible and where appropriate to file, so that we don't subject our renewal customers to quite the same rate shock as we might have done a few years ago when we were trying to get the best of all of our new information into the market as quickly as possible," Renwick said.
Progressive is also increasing its efforts to cross-sell, which Domeck said helps retention. "We focus a lot on trying to be able to offer a homeowners offering to our consumers both on the agents channel, as well as the direct channel. And we have initiatives to cross-sell existing policy-holders with our specialized products or if they are a specialized policyholder with our auto products," he said.
According to renwick, in the current economic environment, customers are "clearly shopping for price." Adding that he feels strongly about Progressive's "brand position in the market place," Renwick said: "Our value proposition has been and continues to be is that we are extremely open and transparent about competitive pricing."
Returning to the strength of its Internet presence, Renwick said: "When you've got that kind of initial feed system, the likelihood of it flowing through to people who can actually sell on the Internet is going to be stronger. ...
"What you don't see as clearly is the response of agents that they truly have now access to sell a company that has a very positive brand to sell. I spent a lot of time in the second quarter with agents and there's a consistent theme of how good they're feeling about the brand and the umbrella effect that brand has had on them."
Progressive's W Package
The Progressive W package for agents includes:
· A discount off W's base pricing
· A professionally designed Web site with a unique domain
· An agent RSS "news feed" providing regularly refreshed content relevant to independent agency customers and prospects
· Progressive's real-time agent quoting and servicing banner
· Sixty minutes per month of consultation with W professionals for site changes or SEO modifications, and the ability to make do-it-yourself changes anytime
· A scorecard measuring real-time results including leads in the form of calls, e-mails, and clicks
· Listings on all major search engines and directories
美国前进保险公司计划采用因特网这一强有力的资源建设直接销售渠道，以扩展其保险代理业务

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Hennessy Named CEO for CNA Europe
Hennessy先生被任命为美国CNA金融集团欧洲区首席执行官
CNA Financial Corp. has named John Hennessy to the position of chief executive officer of CNA's European operations.
The announcement comes soon after the insurer announced a strategy to grow its international operations, starting with CNA Europe.
Hennessy joined CNA in 1982 as an underwriting trainee and assumed increasing responsibilities. During his 27-year career with CNA, he has served in multiple home office and field leadership roles, including Milwaukee branch manager; Central regio