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US General Insurance News brought to you by IDEX Consulting
While innovation in the field of disaster restoration continues to evolve at a steady pace, the soaring frequency, intensity and severity of climate-related disasters seriously threaten to outpace the rate of innovation rollouts. For example, the amount of damage caused by riverine floods in towns and cities is expected to increase by 240 % from $157 billion to $535 billion by 2050 according to the World Resources Institute. MarshMcLennan reports that flooding has caused over $1 trillion in losses globally since 1980.
Charles Taylor rebranded Underwriters Safety & Claims, which will now operate as Charles Taylor TPA. This follows Charles Taylor’s 2021 acquisition of the national third-party administrator, which expanded Charles Taylor’s claims management footprint and enhanced the managed care solutions offered to clients. Full continuity in client services across all lines of business has remained consistent throughout the transition.
Aeolus Capital Management Ltd. and the State University of New York at Albany Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences launched a research collaboration. The hurricane-focused study, led by Dr. Pete Dailey, head of research at Aeolus and a renowned expert in climate catastrophe model development and analytics, will be a quantitative study aiming to better understand the leading indicators of hurricane development and tracking. The research will be specifically looking at the medium-termtime horizon (the period between short-term weather forecasts and climate projections.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions announced Taylor Bush as its recipient of the Life Lessons Scholarship. Created in 2005 by Life Happens, the Life Lessons Scholarship Program seeks to provide financial scholarships to college students and college-bound high school seniors who have lost a parent or guardian with little or no life insurance.
Liberty Specialty Markets partnered with REIN, developer of the IX platform for embedded products, to provide Sony Electronics with an insurance product to offer drone purchasers and operators an instantly accessible coverage option. Their coverage is tailored to Airpeak S1, the world’s smallest class drone that can be equipped with a full-size mirrorless interchangeable-lens Alpha camera.
MarshBerry launched a new monthly insurance brokerage market report: WayPoint. WayPoint offers a deeper level of insight and guidance to help insurance agencies and brokers drive key business decisions.
Hub International Limited developed HUB Tenant Default Captive Insurance for Real Estate Owners, operators and managers of multi-family properties, commercial space and other housing in the U.S. and available in Canada in 2023. As a landlord-controlled captive program, HUB Tenant Default Captive Insurance eliminates the hassle of security deposits, lowers barriers for prospective tenants to improve occupancy rates and creates an additional revenue stream for property owners by enabling them to retain excess premiums.
Fortified, a collaboration of independent insurance agencies, is coming January 2023. The move unites 54 independent agencies throughout the Southeast U.S., including the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
BlinkSM by CHUBB partnered with SoFi to help SoFi members protect their holistic digital footprint and launched personal Cyber insurance. Blink by Chubb offers a suite of Chubb-backed personal insurance products distributed through the company’s digital Brokers and affinity partners, such as SoFi. Chubb is the world’s largest publicly traded Property and Casualty insurance company.
First Tee announced Isabelle Junio as a First Tee Scholar for the Class of 2023, thanks to the support of PURE Insurance. PURE Insurance has served as title sponsor of the PURE Insurance Championship Impacting First Tee since 2017. Since coming on board as title sponsor, PURE has continued to deepen its relationship with First Tee, most recently with their support of First Tee College Scholarship Program through a commitment of $1 million over five years.
Accretive Insurance Solutions announced that Missouri Rural Services Corporation joined the Accretive group of companies. Based in Jefferson City, Missouri, MRSC will remain under the leadership of Alan Clark. This is the fifth acquisition for Accretive in 2022.
WaterStreet launched New WaterStreet Policy Administration Platform, the next generation of P&C policy administration software. The new platform will revolutionize the industry with enhanced speed to market and cost-saving, superior technology that exceeds and surpasses traditional administration software.
TransUnion launched TruValidate Device Risk with Behavioral Analytics. The solution is newly fortified by NeuroID’s behavioral analytics and aims to help businesses stop fraud – not good customers – based on device recognition, context, device and user behavior.
Multiline Insurer Employers Mutual Casualty Co. has announced it will stop writing reinsurance business and lay off about 65 staff. EMC Reinsurance Co., the Des Moines, Iowa-based Insurer’s reinsurance unit, reported $204.2 million in reinsurance premium in 2021 and a reinsurance combined ratio of 125.3%. Property excess reinsurance accounted for 55% of the book, international was 21.8%, Casualty was 16.6% and Proportional Property was 6.6%.
Ascot Group Ltd. has launched a miscellaneous Professional Liability unit providing comprehensive coverage for a range of professional service firms. Led by Todd Cusano, Senior Vice President, Professional Liability, the unit provides miscellaneous Professional Liability coverage as a standalone product on a primary and excess basis, Ascot said.
Hub International Ltd. has launched a medical stop loss captive to help Hospitality employers in the U.S. and those with cross-border operations in Canada manage their health care costs and fund employee benefits. The group captive is aimed at Hospitality employers with stable claims experience, predictable cash flow and more than 75 covered employees, Chicago-based Hub said.
U.S.-based Managing General Agent Resilience Cyber Insurance Solutions has expanded into the U.K. market by launching its operations in London, Reinsurance News reported. For the expansion, Resilience has signed a capacity agreement with HDI Global Specialty SE, with the deal brokered by Lockton Re LLP.
Lincoln Financial Group announced a new partnership between Lincoln Financial Distributors (LFD), its wholesale distribution franchise, and Modern Life, a tech-enabled life insurance brokerage. The partnership will enable Lincoln’s Life insurance product portfolio to be delivered on Modern Life’s digital platform, providing an improved digital end-to-end experience.
Guy Carpenter, a risk and reinsurance specialist and a business of Marsh McLennan, has announced that it has entered an agreement with TNEDICCA, a provider of location-based traffic-crash intelligence and predictive analytics. The agreement will allow Guy Carpenter to provide enhanced auto analytics to its insurance carrier clients.
California regional Broker SullivanCurtisMonroe (SCM) has announced the sudden death of colleague Joe Castle on Sept. 8 in Glendora, Calif. Castle joined SCM in 2014 as an Account Assistant and eventually became an Account Manager. He was recently promoted to Account Executive after spending eight years serving a variety of large accounts, primarily in the construction space. Castle was a member of SCM’s Los Angeles team. He began his insurance career at Marshall W. Rose Insurance.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Boston-based One80 Intermediaries Inc. has acquired Wholesaler C&M First Services Inc. New York-based C&M, which has about 25 employees according to its website, focuses on Asian American retail brokerages.
Specialty risk coverage solutions provider RB Jones announced its Marine & Energy division acquired the Smart Cargo Insurance® business from Corvus Insurance, a Specialty insurance MGA. This Ocean Cargo product offers a custom solution for temperature sensitive cargo such as food and pharmaceuticals. As part of the transaction, RB Jones will have exclusive access to underwrite cargo insurance policies through Skyward Specialty Insurance Group Inc.TM, a Specialty Property and Casualty insurance company that provides capacity to the Marine Cargo industry.
Integrity Marketing Group has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire California-based Gott Professional Insurance Services (GPIS). As part of the transaction, Johnny Gottstein, President and CEO of GPIS, will become a Managing Partner in Integrity. Gottstein founded GPIS in 2007 to help state and federal employees obtain and make the most of their benefits, Integrity said. Since its founding, GPIS has become a recognized national expert in the federal employee market and has expanded to provide insurance and financial services products to municipal employees and members of the military.
Swiss Insurer Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. and Indian financing company Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd. are looking to form a joint venture firm to submit a joint bid for India-based Reliance Capital Ltd.’s general insurance business, Asia Insurance Review reported citing Indo-Asian News Service. If this proposed JV succeeds in the acquisition, it will mark the entry of Zurich Insurance into India's general insurance business market.
US-based Acrisure has made its second UK Broker purchase with CRK Commercial Insurance Services, following the acquisition of Russell Scanlan. The deal is expected to close at the start of October 2022. Founded in 2000, CRK is a specialist schemes provider focusing on the manufacturing, engineering, rope access and HVAC industries.
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Movers & Shakers
Jim DeVoe-Talluto has succeeded Christine Brown as Assistant Director of Captive Insurance at the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation in Montpelier. Mr. DeVoe-Talluto has served as examiner-in-charge since 2005 and joined the Captive division as an Examiner/Analyst in 2004.
The Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance (FACI) has appointed Louisiana Re. Edmond Jordan to its membership. Jordan chairs the National Council of Insurance Legislators’ (NCOIL) Financial Services and Multi-Lines Issues Committee and is a member of the NCOIL executive committee. He also served as Vice Chair of the Louisiana House Insurance Committee.
Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. announced that John Q. Doyle, will take the helm of the company as President and CEO effective Jan. 1, 2023, succeeding Daniel S. Glaser who is retiring at the end of this year. Mr. Glaser, who is 62, will also retire from the company’s board of Directors and Mr. Doyle, aged 58, will join the board as a Director, a Marsh McLennan statement said.
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All information provided in this Market Digest has been gathered from ALM PropertyCasualty 360, Business Insurance, Coverager, Insurance Business Mag and Insurance Age.
