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MARKET NEWS, DATA AND INSIGHT ALL DAY, EVERY DAY
ISSUE 4,893
WEDNESDAY 19 JULY 2017
Early Brexit moves provide comfort amid concerns about future of London market
p2 p4-5
p3
Lloyd’s seeks to smooth capital inflows following market-turning event
Big Interview: Liiba’s Christopher Croft
‘London’s biggest challenge is developing
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Market news, data and insight all day, every dayInsurance Day is the world’s only daily newspaper for the international insurance and reinsurance and risk industries. Its primary focus is on the London market and what affects it, concentrating on the key areas of catastrophe, property and marine, aviation and transportation. It is available in print, PDF, mobile and online versions and is read by more than 10,000 people in more than 70 countries worldwide.
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NEWS www.insuranceday.com | Wednesday 19 July 20172
Lloyd’s seeks to smooth capital inflows following market-turning eventCorporation announces new measures to support syndicates following once-in-a-generation loss
Michael FaulknerEditor
Lloyd’s has unveiled plans to speed up the process of approv-ing syndicate business plans in the aftermath of a market-
turning event.The measures were included as part
of a report setting out six guiding prin-ciples explaining how Lloyd’s would respond to such an event, which pro-duces an insurable loss so significant it results in a rapid upturn in pricing.
Lloyd’s said it would focus on shorten-ing the review and agreement process of business and capital plans, “allowing syndicates to respond more effectively to the aftermath of a major catastrophe and enable capital to flow into the mar-ket more efficiently”.
The last clear market-changing event was caused by the World Trade Center attacks in September 2001, after which there were rate increases of approxi-mately 40% across all classes of business.
However, more than half the new reinsurance capital raised globally in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 went to Bermuda.
Jon Hancock, director of performance management at Lloyd’s, said the aim was to ensure the Lloyd’s market could “act swiftly and decisively to any future market-turning events”.
“We don’t want to impose overly bur-densome requirements on syndicates or insist on any unnecessary process-es or paperwork. We want to make it as straightforward as possible to raise new capital,” Hancock stated.
The six principles set out by Lloyd’s on responding to a market-turning event relate to crisis management – en-suring the market responds to a crisis effectively, pays claims as quickly as possible and remains solvent – and op-portunities to support the market.
Lloyd’s also recommended managing agents consider in advance the possible implications of a market-turning event “and prepare suitably proportionate, robust and well-tested contingency plans”, it said.
Ed targets emerging market A&H growth with senior hireWholesale broking group Ed has ap-pointed Roshan Choolhun as division-al director of its accident and health (A&H) and contingency business as it continues its hiring spree, writes Michael Faulkner.
Choolhun will be responsible for grow-ing the A&H and contingency business, with a focus on developing Ed’s presence in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
He joins from RKH Specialty, where he was a divisional director tasked with producing and broking Middle Eastern direct and facultative business.
Before that, Choolhun spent more than a decade at Chesterfield Insur-ance Brokers, culminating in his ap-pointment as a producing broker with a focus on the Middle East and high-risk occupations and territories.
Andrew Wallin, Ed’s group com-mercial director, said: “Throughout his career, Roshan has demonstrated an exceptional ability to develop new business in emerging markets and is the ideal candidate to realise our ambitions for our A&H and contingen-cy division.”
Choolhun’s appointment is the latest in a series of senior hires by Ed.
‘We want to make it as straightforward as possible to raise new capital. Doing so will ensure Lloyd’s is even better prepared for once-in-a-generation market-turning events’John Hancock Lloyd’s
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center: the last clear market-turning event
NEWSwww.insuranceday.com | Wednesday 19 July 2017 3
Early Brexit moves provide comfort amid concerns about future of London marketInsurance buyers worried about how multinational programmes will work once the UK leaves the EU
Scott VincentEditor, news services
Concerns remain about the future health of the London marketplace after Brexit, but early moves
by insurers to establish European subsidiaries have provided some comfort, according to Marsh’s chief executive for specialties, Roy White.
Addressing a panel discussion at the International Insurance Society’s annual Global Insurance Forum, White said clients’ main concerns were how their insur-ance programmes would work following the UK’s exit from the EU, the identity of the counter-party and how the transactional chain will work.
For global entities, one of the major worries is whether their multinational programme will re-main seamless and operate in the same was as it has in the past.
But White suggested Brexit could act as a catalyst for a wid-er rethink of how the market-place functions. “The proficiency of London in the future will de-termine our ability to service emerging market opportunities,” he said. “Many of the skills and qualities we have as a market will have great potency in emerging markets. My call to the market-place is to think of the opportu-nities that could come to London post-Brexit.”
The executive also urged the market to be careful not to build any additional frictional costs into processes during this transi-tion period.
He did provide some comfort to clients regarding their multi-national programmes, which he said would continue to operate successfully when the UK leaves
the EU. “I am confident the moves made by major carriers will mean multinational programmes can be served in the future,” he said.
Benno Reischel, head of Europe at Lloyd’s, said the market’s new Brussels-based insurance compa-ny would also mean multi-year programmes are unaffected.
“The existing situation is we are still in the EU, so all passporting and insurance policies are valid for the time being,” Reischel said. “Policies underwritten before the exit situation will be valid after the exit situation. We don’t foresee any regulator or govern-ment would disallow a claim in this scenario.
“After exit, policies will be writ-ten in Brussels. Our intention is write business there from the Jan-uary 1, 2019 renewal season, sub-ject to regulatory approval.”
Around 5% of Lloyd’s premiums will go through the new subsidi-ary, but Reischel stressed Lloyd’s and the London market will continue to be able to access EU markets for the next 18 months at least. “We are very keen to see government put together a deal that will give us uninterrupted continued access to the EU mar-ket,” he said.
The European commercial in-surance market is expected to grow by £10bn ($13.02bn) during the next five years, Reischel said, adding Lloyd’s will gain the confidence of local markets by having a presence on the ground in Brussels.
Areas of opportunity for the market in Europe include liability, driven in part by environmental issues, new technologies, ma-rine, aviation and transport and emerging risks such as cyber, as well as political and credit risks, he added.
Karen Briggs, UK head of Brex-it at KPMG, said companies were at various stages of preparedness
for the UK’s departure from the EU, ranging from very prepared to those that are still waiting to see what will happen. “It should be seen as a catalyst to rethink business and deal with issues such as low productivity and the emergence of new technologies,” Briggs said.
She added regulatory guidance needed “urgent attention”, partic-ularly on issues such as how Sol-vency II authorisation will work post-Brexit and how long-term contracts will be treated.
Creating the right regime to allow the London mar-ket to access talent will be critical if it is to main-tain its global position post-Brexit, delegates at the International Insurance Society’s Global Insurance Forum were told, writes Scott Vincent.
Lord Tim Clement-Jones, a partner at DLA Piper, said London needed to remain a melting pot for tal-ent if it is to maintain its position in financial ser-vices, academia and technology. “If we don’t have the right regime for visas to allow people to work here for a long time, I think we will be shooting our-selves in the foot,” he said. “Freedom of movement is absolutely crucial”.
But Clement-Jones said there was the “politi-cal equivalent to Everest standing in the way of a
smooth Brexit” at present, with issues such as the divorce bill to be paid by the UK and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice needing to be re-solved before trade talks can even begin.
“We have until March 29, 2019 to do a deal with the EU,” he said. “It may well be the focus turns to extending the deadline or, at the very least, ensur-ing transitional measures are in place.
“My advice is to plan and assess using a range of scenarios, some of them worst case. This may in-volve reviewing entire business models and trying to influence decision-makers here or in Brussels and trying to get the best – or least worst – outcome.”
He called for a consistent narrative from the UK “about innovation and what we can do here”.
Talent melting pot ‘crucial’ to London’s future
Crowds on Regent Street: the city needs to remain a melting
pot for talent, according to Lord Tim Clement-Jones
IR Stone/Shutterstock.com
‘Many of the skills and qualities we have as a market will have great potency in emerging markets. My call to the marketplace is to think of the opportunities that could come to London post-Brexit’Roy White Marsh
BIG INTERVIEW www.insuranceday.com | Wednesday 19 July 20174 www.insuranceday.com | Wednesday 19 July 2017 5
The biggest threat facing the London market is not ‘Uberisation’ but its inability to come up with a solution for its customers’ main risks, the chief executive of Liiba says
There have been several failed attempts over the past three decades to use technology to make the
London specialty lines insurance market more accessible, efficient and cost-effective for customers. But with the progress made in re-cent years by the London Market Group’s (LMG) Target Operating
Model (TOM) – which includes the development of a central placing service and e-trading platform, Placing Platform Limited – many say there is now sufficient mo-mentum for London to finally move forward into the digital age.
Christopher Croft, the chief executive of the London & In-ternational Insurance Brokers’ Association (Liiba), is very much part of this consensus. But he is frustrated by some of the narra-tives that have emerged more recently about the future of the specialty lines broker when the
modernisation of the London market and, in particular, the implications of the insurtech revolution for the market, is dis-cussed at industry gatherings.
Those discussions, according to Croft, tend to focus on the ineffi-ciencies in the distribution chain and how unspecified new tech-nologies will render the role of the broker irrelevant as the digi-tisation of the distribution chain significantly reduces transaction costs for insurer and insured in many specialty line areas. For brokers to survive in the digital
Rasaad JamieGlobal markets editor
world, the argument goes, they will need to become specialist advisers, rather than continue as commission-based intermedi-aries. The former, Croft says, al-ready describes the vast majority of Liiba member companies.
In his previous role as the head of the LMG secretariat, Croft was the driving force behind the first London Matters report, published in November 2014, which provid-ed the framework for the mod-ernisation of the market. “If you look at the customer research that we did as part of that report – re-
search which has been backed up by other work that has been done by the LMG since then – the over-riding message was not that there was an issue with the insurance distribution model, but there that there was an issue with the insur-ance product,” he says.
Uncovered risks He highlights the well-publicised comments from risk managers’ association Airmic in the research, which revealed that only 10% of the risks faced by companies are covered by the insurance market.
‘The challenge for London, as an insurance market,
is fundamental. We have to change the nature of
the product… to help our customers mitigate
some of the 90% of the exposures faced by
their businesses, which they tell us the
insurance market currently does not
have a solution for’Christopher Croft
Liiba
upcoming FCA [Financial Con-duct Authority] wholesale market study. Our job is to ensure what-ever regulation comes out of that process is proportional. Those are our three top priorities. I would not put them in any order.”
Liiba is making progress on all three issues, according to Croft. “But they are all long-term issues. Brexit will be two years in ne-gotiation and then we will have to face up to the challenges of implementation beyond that. Equally, we are making progress on TOM. But that, too, will take time. Making business process-es more efficient, is a continual process. So we will always keep a focus on that. And insuring regu-lators remain proportional is an eternal conundrum.
“So those issues are likely al-ways to be at the forefront for Lii-ba. But having said that, if we had had this conversation at the be-ginning of last year, Brexit would not have been on that list. So the potential for things to change can’t be ignored.”
Indeed, one of those issues just outside the association’s top three priorities and one which cannot be ignored is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) and some of the other developments around the wider tax reform process in the US, which Croft de-scribes as an ongoing challenge for its members. But Liiba is now less concerned about the prospect of a border adjustment tax than it has been because it now appears the Republicans in Congress are moving away from the idea of im-plementing that measure.
“But if the border adjustment tax comes back, it would have huge implications for our mem-bers and, certainly, we would be lobbying hard against it. We con-tinue to push on Fatca. We work very closely with the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers who are our equivalent in the US and professional and experienced Washington lobbyists.”
Nonsensical lawAs Insurance Day has previously reported, Both Liiba and the CIAB want to see the general insurance market exempted from Fatca. “It just makes no sense. And we now find ourselves in the position where Fatca applies to what they call in the US foreign-to-foreign transactions. Any piece of busi-ness anywhere in the world with a US touchpoint can be subjected to Fatca. An extreme example of this is worldwide travel insurance.
And, if you are the end broker dealing with the client, which our members often are, and you can’t demonstrate that all the insurers on that risk are Fatca-compliant, you are expected to withhold 30% of the premium and pay it to the US Inland Revenue Service.”
It is a situation which, accord-ing to Croft, creates problems at many levels. “To begin with, it means your client will probably not be on risk because the full amount has not been paid to the insurer. And then, if you are in the UK, there is no legal mecha-nism for you to make the payment because general insurance is not covered by the relevant inter- governmental agreements.”
Indeed, it is not just illegal for the broker to pay the money to the IRS, it breaches regulatory rules as well. “The FCA, rightly, consid-ers that to be client money and you are not allowed to make the payment unless you have the pri-or permission of your client to do so. But the big, unanswered ques-tion, from our members’ perspec-tive, is: how does a transaction like that enable the avoidance of federal taxes in the US?”
Croft describes Fatca as a piece of legislation which is being wrongly applied and which is creating quite a significant bur-den for brokers without a hope of ever achieving its objectives. “The situation is pretty chaotic at the moment. And getting that message across is a struggle. The UK Treasury has been very good about it and is trying to help. They have spoken to their counterparts in the US but, at the moment, the US Treasury Department can’t re-ally do anything about the issue because the Trump administra-tion has still to make several key appointments. But we continue to push on Fatca and we remain optimistic that we will come to an agreement with the Americans.”
The Fatca rules, Croft points out, have now been in place since 2014 for transactions where a US insured is involved. “It involves a lot of form filling. This is not so bad when you are dealing with a big international insurance group. But suppose you are deal-ing with an insurer in China and you tell them they need to fill in a form for the IRS before you can place any business with them. They may well turn around and laugh at you. The view in the market is that this is a bad bit of legislation which is currently hin-dering international trade for no discernible benefit.” n
“That is a pretty damning com-ment on the product that we are trying to sell. So our biggest chal-lenge is not necessarily the effi-ciency of the distribution chain, as some of these discussions would suggest. Our biggest challenge is developing products that compa-nies want when they engage with that distribution chain. And that is a challenge for brokers and insur-ers alike,” he says.
“Part of the beauty of the Lon-don market is that we design those products together, so our biggest challenge is not necessar-ily the efficiency of the shop – it is having something that people want to buy when they get into the shop.”
This, he continues, is not to deny that there is scope for brokers to use technology to be more efficient and to deliver bet-ter value for their customers. “And, in general, that is what they are doing. For example, you will find intensive R&D work going on around these new technolo-gies within our larger members, which are looking at ways to be more relevant to the changing needs of their clients.”
According to the most recent statistics, Liiba’s members place around $67bn of premiums in London and another $24bn in other centres around the world. The biggest threat facing the Lon-don market, according to Croft, is not from the “Uberisation” of the market, but the product itself. “That [Uber] model continues to provide people with the same product – taxis. It is just doing so in a different way. The chal-lenge for London, as an insurance market, is more fundamental. We
have to change the nature of the product, we have to change the taxi itself to help our customers mitigate some of the 90% of the exposures faced by their busi-nesses, which they tell us the in-surance market currently does not have a solution for.”
Croft first became involved in the project to modernise the London market in 2004, when he joined the Market Reform Group, the predecessor organisation for the LMG. Before that, he was in-volved in financial services reg-ulation for 10 years and worked at the Personal Investment Au-thority and the Financial Services Authority. He became chief ex-ecutive of Liiba in January 2016, replacing David Hough, who had done the job for 36 years. Croft is very conscious that he succeeded a man who was, in many ways, a market legend. “David played a fundamental role in the market, particularly in terms of bringing the voice of the customer into market discussions and repre-senting the interest of our mem-bers,” he says.
Lobbying EuropeCroft sees his main challenge as ensuring continuity. His aim, he says, is for people not to notice too much of a difference between his and Hough’s leadership of Liiba.
So far, he appears to be suc-ceeding. Last year, after less than 12 months in the job, Croft over-came one of the major challenges of trade association work in Eu-rope: successfully lobbying an EU regulatory body.
Working through the Europe-an Federation of Insurance In-termediaries (Bipar), Liiba has
obtained permission from the European Insurance and Occupa-tional Pensions Authority (Eiopa) for brokers placing open market business in the London market to be exempt from the majori-ty of oversight and governance rules for product design and de-velopment under the Insurance Distribution Directive (IID). “So these rules will not apply to our members in cases where the in-surance of a bespoke risk is being negotiated. That, essentially, ex-empts the majority of open mar-ket business in London.”
This, he says, is very import-ant for Liiba members because business in the market is not con-ducted in the same literal, step by step way as envisaged by the IDD rules in terms of the identification of target market and product de-velopment and design. This is, he says, largely due to the fact that the specialty lines broker is often engaged in a direct, one-to-one relationship with both the client and the insurer. “All of those stag-es occur in an open market trans-action, but they are often implicit and they can all occur in a single meeting in London at which the broker, their client and the insur-er are all present. We made that point to Eiopa and they took it on board. So, as the direct result of Liiba lobbying, the London mar-ket has obtained that exemption.”
Croft says the modernisation of the market, particularly the success of PPL, is important for Liiba, but it is not the single most important issue: “So is Brexit and its implications for our members. And so is the issue of regulation, particularly with the new dele-gated authorities’ rules and the
‘London’s biggest challenge is developing products customers actually want’
www.insuranceday.com | Wednesday 19 July 20176
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RISK FORESIGHTwww.insuranceday.com | Wednesday 19 July 2017 7
Corruption allegations could curtail Temer’s Brazil presidencyIndictment threatens improving business environment, economic recovery and progress of pension reform
Serious corruption allega-tions against Brazil’s pres-ident, Michel Temer – the prosecutor-general has
formally indicted him before the Supreme Court – are threatening to cut his presidency short, with the speaker of the Lower House, Rodrigo Maia, being mentioned as a potential substitute.
This has severe implications for Brazil at a time when the business environment is showing substan-tial improvement and the econ-omy appears to be getting out of recession. More critically, the ap-
proval by Congress of important pension reforms, promoted by Temer as the central agenda of his administration, appears highly unlikely, as the crisis is undermin-ing his support base in Congress.
Temer’s setback has seriously undermined the cohesion of the ruling coalition; the alliance of the Partido do Movimento Democráti-co Brasileiro, Temer’s party, and the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) has been behind the approval of important con-gressional bills, such as a freeze on public expenditure and labour
reform. Three small parties have already abandoned the govern-ment; the PSDB has stayed with serious reservations, but with new serious corruption allega-tions against Temer emerging, the president of the PSDB is indicat-ing his party is likely to leave too.
The chances of an interim gov-ernment taking over are increas-ing, but it would be unlikely to maintain the momentum of the reform drive; political uncertainty would delay restoration of business confidence until a new government is elected in October 2018. n
Libya: LNA’s victory against Islamic State in Benghazi reduces violent risks for commercial assets in the city
On July 13, suspected members of one of Brazil’s largest organised crime groups, the Primer Coman-do da Capital (PCC), assaulted a luxury jewellery store in the busi-ness district of Santa Cruz, Boliv-ia’s commercial hub.
The raid, carried out with M16 assault rifles, left five people dead, including a police officer, and was the second high-profile incident involving suspected members of the PCC this year.
These incidents provide an ear-ly indication of a shift in criminal activity by the group, from drug trade logistics and related en-forcement activities to specifically targeting Bolivian-based commer-cial assets for robbery.
The PCC has a culture of vio-lence and its recent assaults in Bolivia indicate it is able to obtain assault rifles and other firearms for use in the country. Businesses and cargo drivers who are victims of assault will face a high risk of death or injury as a result. n
Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar declared victory on July 5 in the battle between the Libyan Nation-al Army (LNA) and Islamist mili-tias and Islamic State for control of the eastern city of Benghazi.
The LNA offensive Operation Dignity has caused extensive damage to the city centre and displaced approximately 90,000
people since it began in May 2014.Although fighting continues in
isolated pockets of the city’s Sa-bri district, the LNA will probably consolidate its control over the city in the coming weeks. This will reduce violent risks at key com-mercial assets, including Benina International Airport, where com-mercial flights were to resume on
July 15, and at Benghazi seaport, where engineers are assessing damage to infrastructure.
Although major fighting is at an end, both targeted and collater-al death and injury risks in Ben-ghazi are likely to remain high for the foreseeable future. Western Libyan forces have frequently ac-cused the LNA of turning a blind
eye to Islamic State operations to strengthen their own position against rivals.
Accordingly, hundreds of Is-lamic State fighters are likely to have escaped Benghazi, despite the intensity of fighting. Al-though some of them are likely to have joined up with Islam-ic State remnants around Bani
Walid and in the Fezzan, others will remain in the east to train and launch attacks. n
IHS Markit leverages the company’s detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of 204 countries, covering political, economic, legal, tax and security risks.
Somalia: pirates fail with attacks
Four piracy incidents involving Somalia-based pirates were report-ed last month, all unsuccessful.
Two of the attempts were de-feated by the presence of onboard armed security guards. One of the attempts involved pirates using a mother ship.
The reported sinking of a tank-er on June 27 is assessed not to have involved piracy.
An al-Shabaab jihadist attack on a Puntland military post on June 8 indicates a deteriorating security environment onshore, which works to the advantage of would-be pirates. n
Bolivia: PCC raid kills five
Pakistan: JIT seeks official investigation of Sharif The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), formed by Pakistan’s Su-preme Court to investigate cor-ruption allegations against the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, and his family, submitted its findings on July 10.
Among several damaging con-clusions, the JIT found the Sharif family had accumulated wealth that could not be explained by their declared income. The re-port went on to recommend an official investigation against Sharif by the National Account-ability Bureau, the country’s pri-mary anti-corruption body.
Although opposition figures have called on Sharif to resign, senior leaders of the ruling Pa-kistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party have vehemently disputed the JIT’s findings. The Supreme Court will decide on the next steps in the investiga-tion when it meets on July 18.
Pressure for Sharif to resign will intensify in this case, but he is still unlikely to do so. The exception is if the PML-N leader-ship forces him to resign, having calculated his continued pre-miership will derail the party’s re-election prospects in the 2018 general election.
However, the more likely sce-nario is Sharif will remain in power while the government be-comes increasingly preoccupied with his survival and defence. This will detrimentally affect the government’s broader function-ing, triggering a state of policy paralysis in most sectors apart from efforts to improve electric-ity supply ahead of elections. n
Demonstrators in São Paulo protest against Michel Temer and his proposed changes to
labour laws and pensions
© 2017 Andre Penner/AP
Increased risk interconnection pressures re/insurersReinsurers must better understand their portfolios as risks become more intertwined
Reinsurers must improve their understanding of their risk exposures in an increasingly inter-
connected world, industry experts have warned.
Speaking at an event at Lloyd’s, industry experts said recent years had seen an unprecedented shift in the risk landscape, with non-correlated risks becoming increasingly intertwined. This has proved problematic for re/insurers in understanding their exposures.
Adriano Bastiani, head of casu-alty facultative for global clients, North America at Munich Re, said these increasing interconnections were a particular issue for reinsur-ers more than for insurers because of the breadth of their portfolios and the potential for multi-class events. “Reinsurers must under-
stand the make-up of their port-folios and the scenarios their balance sheets are exposed to,” he said.
Suki Basi, chief executive of risk management software com-pany Russell Group, who host-ed the event, said connected risk is caused by an inherent weakness in the inter-connected architecture of today’s business-to- business relationships. As a result, political, environmental, supply chain, cyber and credit risks can combine to cause financial, opera-tional and reputational loss.
“These are increasingly digi-tal and allow a single negative event to exponentially spread dis ruption, paralysis and wreak severe economic damage both within and between organisa-tions,” Basi said.
“In an increasingly connected world, corporates and their net-works need to prepare for more unpredictable ‘black swan’ events, which are caused when a local event produces a ‘butterfly effect’ and unleashes a cascade of fur-
fast-changing risk environment. “Companies have to create a cul-ture that embraces change,” Bou-loux said.
Risk management was central to this, he continued. “People can be the biggest contributors to manag-ing risk but also the biggest flaw in
this, and become risk themselves,” he said.
Bouloux said companies needed to take an innovative approach to their risk management to ensure it addresses the increased expo-sures in an interconnected global economy.
Brown & Brown reports organic revenue growth slowdownUS broking group Brown & Brown opened the results season, report-ing a slowdown in organic growth in the second quarter of the year, writes Michael Faulkner.
The Florida-based group booked fees and commissions of $464.7m for the three months to the end of June, representing 1.6% organic growth compared to the same peri-od last year. But growth was lower than a year ago, when the broker booked organic revenue growth of 2.6% in the second quarter of 2016.
Profitability also declined. In-come before income taxes for the second quarter was $108m –
down 0.9% compared to last year. Ebitdac (earnings before inter-
est, income taxes, depreciation, amortisation and the change in estimated acquisition earnout payables) for the second quar-ter edged down 0.5% to $150.6m,
while the Ebitdac margin shrank 1.2 points to 32.3%.
J Powell Brown, Brown & Brown’s president and chief exec-utive, said: “We are pleased with our quarterly results and year-to-date performance.”
Patria Re swoops on Berkley Re for divisional director Lloyd’s special-purpose syndicate Patria Re has added two under-writers to its team in London, writes Michael Faulkner.
Nicolas Benardout has been named divisional director at the reinsurer, having joined from Berkley Re UK, where he was most recently head of property treaty.
He is joined by Jack Bunting, an assistant underwriter at Berk-ley Re. Bunting will become as-sistant underwriter for Patria Re’s international property treaty business lines.
Patria Re, which underwrites
Latin American reinsurance at Lloyd’s, is managed by Ironshore International’s Pembroke Manag-ing Agency. Launched in 2016, it was the first Mexican insurer to join the Lloyd’s platform.
“The Patria Re Lloyd’s SPA [special-purpose arrangement] has built a broad and diverse port-folio based on established Patria Re relationships,” Chris Brown, Pembroke strategic partnership di-rector, said. “Nick and Jack’s exper-tise will enable the SPA to continue to build on the robust foundation that has been established.”
Rebecca HancockReporter
ther events through the network, impacting numerous corporates along the way,” Basi added.
Jamie Bouloux, chief executive of EmergIn Risk, a London-based managing general underwriter, said companies needed the ability to adapt to remain relevant in the
Warehouse: global inter-connected supply chains make today’s businesses
vulnerable to disruption
Marcin Balcerzak/Shutterstock.com
Daytona Beach, home to Brown
& Brown: the broker posted
organic growth of 1.6% for second quarter of 2017
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