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...The US property and casualty insurance industry has suffered through a summer of devastating thunderstorms on the continent....
...“The big, global events will have a very comprehensive policy,” said Edel Ryan, of the special risks practice at insurance broker Marsh JLT Specialty....
...Third-quarter results from insurers offered evidence of the damage. Travelers, the $34bn US insurer, warned of an “increasingly challenging tort environment” as its profits fell sharply....
...So far though, most of the action has been in property and casualty insurance — cover for buildings, cars and business....
...Credit Suisse has promoted Tim Devine and Chris Eby to newly created roles heading the bank’s specialty finance business in the Americas....
...The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day flat at 21,808, thanks in part to a 2.5 per cent decline for property and casualty insurer Travelers — one of several insurers that took a leg lower as investors...
...In an industry with a mixed record of M&A success — Citicorp’s 1998 combination with Travelers was one of many ill-fated insurance deals — Mr Greenberg left nothing to chance....
...Mr Watsa’s company, Fairfax Financial, announced plans to buy insurer Allied World, which does most of its business in North America....
...The combination of the two companies creates a “world leader in property and casualty insurance, reinsurance and investments”, said Fairfax, which last year bought UK insurer Brit for £1.2bn....
...Both companies provide property and casualty cover in the state, writes Alistair Gray in New York....
...“It seems to us that there are more geopolitical tensions now then there have ever been since the end of the cold war,” says Evan Freely, global head of credit specialties at Marsh, the insurance broker....
...The deal for Chubb is the clearest sign yet of his ambition to build an insurance empire on the scale of AIG, which became the world’s largest insurer under the dogged 40-year stewardship of Mr Greenberg...
...Hartford Financial, a smaller rival, jumped more than 6 per cent to a fresh seven-year high of $44.19 and Travelers Companies rose 2.73 per cent to $99.30....
...At the end of 2013, Hamilton Insurance had a capitalisation of $800m....
...In property casualty insurance, periods of rising and falling premium rates, and therefore ups and downs in earnings and stock prices, come and go. In recent years, rates have been increasing....
...closely allied fund buying a 20 per cent stake in a Chinese internet TV company Wasu Media Holding Co for more than $1bn on Tuesday....
...The primary insurers are more exposed, so the likes of State Farm, Allstate and Travelers, which have big market shares in the affected areas, will be the ones to watch....
...Ten days have passed since Hurricane Sandy ravaged the east coast of the US, yet investors in insurance companies remain largely in the dark about the scale of the losses facing the industry....
...At $35, AIG’s shares still trade at about half the company’s book value while more profitable rivals in the insurance industry, such as Chubb, Travelers and ACE Limited, trade in line with or above book...
...Bank of America and Mr Weill’s old company Citigroup....
...About Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway and its subsidiaries engage in diverse business activities including property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, utilities and energy, freight rail transportation...
...Travelers now joins JPMorgan Chase, American Express and Bank of America among financial companies in the Dow....
...By December 2001, Mr Weill even turned his back on a big part of his legacy, moving to spin off Citigroup’s Travelers property and casualty insurance arm – which had given Mr Weill his corporate name and...
...Merrill Lynch, once a proud independent company whose bull logo adorned the main streets of middle America, was forced to sell itself to Bank of America....
...It is the largest insurance industry deal since St. Paul merged with Travelers in a $16bn deal in 2003....
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