January 2015 - Latitude Brokers

Falling Oil Prices – How do they affect your insurance rates?

From 2010 until mid-2014, oil prices had been fairly stable, at about $110 a barrel. However, as we have seen constantly in the news, the oil price has fallen sharply over the past seven months (as at January 2015) with Brent crude oil now dipping below $50 a barrel. Why does the price of oil keep falling? Very briefly – oil ...

Reduction in the IG Excess Reinsurance Programme for 2015

Negotiations have been finalised for the International Group General Excess of Loss reinsurance contract and the favourable Pool claims experience for 2012, 2013 and 2014 policy years, have enabled the group to achieve rate reductions: minus 8.11% for clean and dirty tankers minus 6.05% for dry cargo vessels and no increase for passenger vessels and chartered entries. The Clubs apart from ...

Our (very concise) View on P&I and H&M for 2015

We were kindly asked by Tradewinds to give a short overview of how we see the H&M and P&I market in 2015. Here’s what we said in Tradewinds 9 January 2015 edition: “P&I The main themes for 2015 are diversification, regulatory effects, fixed premium and the Nairobi Convention. Diversification of IG Clubs’ product base continues, the latest being Standard Syndicate ...

XL to buy Catlin Group for USD4.1bn (Updated)

The purchase of Catlin Group by the global insurer XL Group Plc is to proceed according the their Press Release of yesterday. The new entity will trade as XL Catlin, with the parent company remaining as XL Group. According to the press release, the companies are expecting the transaction to be completed in mid-2015. What’s interesting about this is, aside ...