News roundup...

The month began with the annual reminder of the cost of Guy Fawkes night to the insurance industry. Insurance Times told us that last year, fires cost £3.4m per day in the UK – little wonder fireworks and bonfires are little cause for celebration amongst the insurers.

The big names hit the headlines again, with Allianz posting an 11% rise in commercial lines GWP and AXA announcing a £2bn rights issue to fund acquisition. This was all closely followed by news that Aviva is targeting a top-three position within the UK’s corporate risk sector by 2014. POST Magazine reported that the new corporate risk solutions division will begin underwriting at the start of 2010 and will concentrate on businesses with turnovers of at least £100m.

The theme of start-up brokers was back in vogue this month too, with Grant Ellis, Chairman of Broker Network confidently stating that the Broker Network start-up package is the ‘best in business.’ This was accompanied in Insurance Times by the news that two new brokers, Baker Jayne and Glenavon had enlisted the support of the Network and successfully started trading, with full FSA authorisation. Grant commented:

“We want to ensure that Broker Network is the natural home for individuals or teams looking to start out, as this fits perfectly with our ethos of championing the cause of the independent broker.”

Next month, we can expect the annual roundup of who’s who and what’s what in insurance – we’ll do what we can to summarise it for you right here in In the know. Until then...

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