Insurance Insight – top 10 stories

The 10 most read stories from www.insuranceinsight.eu over the past seven days.

1/ Analysts praise ECON vote on Solvency II
Industry experts have praised the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee decision to back a series of Solvency II amendments.

2/ European insurers win ground in Solvency II debate
European Union insurers could be spared the full impact of solvency rules owing to a last-minute agreement on Thursday between senior lawmakers.

3/ JLT warns against buying cheap nuclear build insurance
Speaking at the European Nuclear Forum in Brussels today, JLT's Global Nuclear Practice Group warned consumers of the risk of buying nuclear new build insurance cheaply and ultimately paying for insurance twice.

4/ CNA to acquire Hardy
US commercial insurer CNA is to acquire Lloyd's insurer Hardy Underwriting.

5/ AIR and RMS agree multi-year data sharing deal
Rival catastrophe modelling firms AIR Worldwide and Risk Management Solutions have formed an agreement to share exposure data schemas, in response to the growing numbers of clients using multiple models.

6/ Insurance Europe disappointed by ECON's approval of long-term guarantees
Insurance Europe, formerly the CEA, welcomed the approval of the provisions in relation to non-life and health insurance by the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee today, saying it hoped to see them included in the final Omnibus II directive.

7/ Ecclesiastical posts loss, despite Ireland performance
Specialist faith insurance providers Ecclesiastical made an overall pre-tax loss of £7.7m for the full year 2011.

8/ Generali profit hit by €1,017m one-off impairments
Generali posted reduced profits for the full year 2011 due to impairments from Greek write-downs and its Telco investment to the tune of €1,017m.

9/ Ace bolsters Continental Europe sales and distribution team
Ace has made three senior appointments to its Continental Europe sales and distribution team.

10/ Solvency II unlikely to spark wave of relocations, says Fitch
Solvency II is unlikely to lead to a wave of European insurers moving their headquarters out of Europe as a result of concerns about third-country equivalence, particularly for the US, ratings agency Fitch has claimed.