What’s New: In Brief (December 12, 2007)

Aon Re Global Fac has launched a reinsurance private clients suite model consisting of facultative insurance professionals in 15 different locations around the world.This approach to global cedants is a component of the Aon Re Global’s Integrated Capital Solutions and Services strategy.”By offering the Private Clients Suite, we can focus on building strategic and consultative relationships with our clients, and be better positioned to create innovative and valuable facultative solutions for global cedants,” Elliot Richardson, CEO of Aon Re Global Fac, said in a statement.”This unique initiative creates a truly independent, local fac broker with unparalleled global reach.”

A joint venture between brokers ICAP plc and Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc (ICAP-JLT) has brokered its first catastrophe swap transaction, a North American windstorm.Catastrophe swaps are designed to cover a pure form of risk linked to a single catastrophic event, a joint release says. Counterparties who buy catastrophe swaps are effectively buying insurance for the eventuality that a catastrophic event takes place and industry-wide insured losses reach a specified threshold. The ICAP-JLT venture offers a broker service in markets in which insurance, financial derivatives and securities are converging, as well as originating and structuring transactions in this area, the statement says.