Government bonds are a bigger trap than you might think for yield-hungry long-term investors. U.K. pension funds and life insurers could be hit with a double whammy of pain as ultra-low government bond yields intensify funding shortfalls and spur investors to match their ballooning liabilities with longer-dated assets, creating further demand for sovereign debt and pushing yields even lower. U.K. pension funds and […]

Royal London’s finance director Tim Harris has become chairman of the Association of British Insurers’ prudential, financial and taxation committee. He takes over from Andy Parsons, finance director for insurance at Lloyds Banking Group, who has stepped down as chair of the committee after taking on a new role at the company. Prior to joining […]

North American life insurers have accidentally doubled their distressed-debt holdings in just six months. In the future, they are poised to build on that mound by design. Companies including Prudential Financial Inc. and MetLife Inc. held $1.32 billion of bonds that were in default, or close to it, at the end of the second quarter, their […]

Aegon NV, the Dutch owner of U.S. insurer Transamerica Corp., reported a loss of 385 million euros ($430 million) in the second quarter after the company sold its U.K. annuity business and interest-rate hedges backfired. The insurer booked a 628 million-euro book loss on the sale of two-thirds of its British annuity portfolio to Rothesay Life Ltd., […]

Old Mutual Plc, the London-based insurer planning to split into separate businesses, dropped the most in more than six weeks as first-half profit missed analyst estimates and the company said the rest of the year will be fraught with challenges. The stock slid as much as 6.3 percent on Thursday, the biggest intraday decline since June […]

Finding appropriately skilled staff for technology projects is a problem which plagues many businesses, but one insurance company has told City A.M. it seems to have it sussed. Gary Hoffman, chief executive officer of Hastings Group Holdings, revealed the company was increasingly looking beyond other insurance firms to sniff out the best talent and turning to tech […]

Hastings Group Holdings revealed its profits had grown strongly during the first half of 2016 today, no doubt helped by growth in both the home and telematics markets. The figures The insurer revealed operating profit had increased to £70.8m for the six months to June, up 20 per cent from £59.2m the year before. Meanwhile, gross written premiums rose to £360.6m, […]

  LONDON, Aug 11 Investigations into Old Mutual by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) could delay its break-up plans, its chief executive said on Thursday as it reported a nine percent fall in first-half operating profit. Old Mutual plans to break into four parts comprising its South African bank Nedbank and U.S., UK and emerging […]

Aegon has bought platform Cofunds from Legal & General (L&G) for £140 million. The deal will make Aegon the largest advised platform provider in the UK. In its half year results to 30 June 2016, L&G said Cofunds had £77.5 billion of assets under administration. This will be added to £9 billion in assets Aegon already has on its […]

Zurich Insurance Group AG rose to the highest in eight months on higher profit at its largest unit, adding to signs that an overhaul at Switzerland’s biggest insurer is starting to bear fruit. General Insurance, Zurich’s biggest source of premium income, saw first-half profit rise 3 percent to $1.2 billion, the company said in a […]