Fintech Acrisure said it has completed it deal to acquire managing general agent Vave from its parent company, Canopius. Vave will continue to operate under its brand name and be a part of New York-based Acrisure Underwriting, a platform of 12 MGAs operating in the U.S. Vave will also continue to be led by its management team, led by CEO Marek Shafer. With its principal place of business in Chicago, Vave operates under London’s Canopius. It began trading in 2019. Canopius will continue to be one of several capacity providers to Vave. Vave combines science, data, and underwriting to offer…
Author: Awais
Vladimir Putin made a big deal of Russia’s success in seizing control of Kupyansk in eastern Ukraine late last year, even as Volodymyr Zelenskiy immediately challenged the claim by making a video address from the town. Now Russian forces are gradually being pushed out of Kupyansk by Ukrainian troops, according to two people in Moscow with knowledge of the situation. It’s an embarrassing reversal for President Putin as the warring sides prepare to intensify fighting again with winter snows giving way to spring on the battlefield. Russia’s Defense Ministry hasn’t commented on the situation in the town that’s an important…
Axios, a tool widely used to develop software applications, was compromised overnight, introducing a vulnerability in a key part of the internet’s plumbing. Hackers were able to breach one of the few accounts that can release new versions of Axios late Monday and published malicious versions of it. Axios, or Axios NPM, is a client that software developers use to send requests to servers — allowing software to connect to the web — and is downloaded about 80 million times every week. NPMs are reusable packages of code that make it faster to develop software. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group linked…
US President Donald Trump said he’ll only consider a halt to attacks on Iran when the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, sowing further confusion about how long he’s prepared to continue the war.Iran’s “New Regime President” has asked the US for a ceasefire, Trump said in a social-media post, possibly referring to comments Masoud Pezeskhian made Tuesday that the Islamic Republic has “the necessary will” to end this war with certain guarantees. “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion,” Trump said. Trump’s comments came a day after he suggested he’s keen to exit the conflict sooner rather than later…
Soon after taking office, President Trump reversed longstanding policy that had protected against immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations” including health care facilities, schools, and places of worship. Following this recission, as well as an overall increase in enforcement activity, there have been reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showing up at hospitals and other health care facilities. ICE presence at and around health care facilities has led to growing concerns among health care providers about the impacts on the health and safety of the community, including adults and children going without care. These actions sit against a backdrop…
Global demand for reinsurance increased by approximately 10% at the April 1st reinsurance renewals, as buyers capitalised on favourable market conditions to secure more comprehensive protection, with some expected to return to the market post-renewal to explore additional purchases, according to broker Aon’s April renewal report.However, Aon’s report also noted that certain Asia Pacific markets saw rate reductions of up to 20%, which according to the broker, underscored the strength of buyer leverage supported by abundant capacity. “In key Asia Pacific markets – including Japan, Korea and India – reinsurance buyers secured double‑digit rate reductions, supported by plentiful capacity and…
Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. ‘The Federal Government’s Loss Is the County’s Gain’ I wanted to thank Rachana Pradhan and Katheryn Houghton for their coverage of the loss of staff at the National Institutes of Health (“Six Federal Scientists Run Out by Trump Talk About the Work Left Undone,” March 6). In December 2024, I had accepted a tentative job offer for a dream job at NIH after eight years of being a federal contractor supporting data science work with the…
The recent escalation of the Middle East war introduces geopolitical instability with potential long-lasting effects on commodities, financing conditions, global supply chains, and macro-credit conditions depending on the duration and scale of the conflict. S&P Global Ratings’ base case for the Middle East war assumes that elevated hostilities will persist into early April, with the Strait of Hormuz facing material disruptions. We continue to recognize the risk of spillovers and security incidents continuing beyond this period. While market conditions have historically normalized quickly after geopolitical events, the current war appears distinct and some credit impacts are inevitable. The extent of…
The restart of some 50,000 barrels a day of oil production off the coast of California will have have “no impact” on oil prices, the state’s Attorney General said in an interview on Bloomberg Televison. Houston-based oil driller Sable Offshore Corp. has spent years attempting to restart production at a cluster of platforms off the Santa Barbara coast, facing local opposition tied to an onshore pipeline that spilled more than 2,000 barrels of oil onto California beaches when owned by Plains All American Pipeline. Earlier this month, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright instructed Sable to restart the pipeline system under…
The Bank of England said on Wednesday that the Iran war had dealt “a substantial negative supply shock” to the world economy, increasing the danger that pre-existing threats to financial stability materialize. The BoE said the prospect of weaker growth and higher inflation and borrowing costs raised the chance of risks crystallizing simultaneously in government debt markets, private credit and the valuations of U.S. tech giants. “The conflict has made the global environment materially more unpredictable and followed a period in which global risks were already elevated. This increases the possibility of large, frequent and potentially overlapping shocks and periods…
Insurers including Chubb, Fidelis and Lloyd’s were granted permission on Tuesday to appeal against a London court ruling in favor of the world’s largest aircraft lessor AerCap over jets stuck in Russia since its war on Ukraine. London’s High Court ruled in June that AerCap can recover just over $1 billion from its “war risks insurers,” though that was less than the roughly $2 billion it sought under a broader all-risks clause. The court ruled broadly in favor of leasing companies in a multi-billion-dollar legal dispute with insurers, following the trial of one of the biggest insurance disputes yet heard…
The chief judge on Delaware’s corporate court said she will reassign three cases involving Elon Musk to avoid unnecessary media attention after the billionaire entrepreneur complained that her activity on social media had shown bias against him. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Court of Chancery said she was reassigning three cases against Musk and Tesla board members that are potentially worth billions of dollars after the defendants said she supported a post on LinkedIn celebrating a jury verdict against Musk in an unrelated securities fraud case. “As should be obvious, disproportionate media attention surrounding a judge’s handling of an action…
Reinsurance broker Gallagher Re has reported that Japanese property catastrophe programmes ran loss free, leading to risk-adjusted rate decreases of between -15% and -17.5% at the April 1st, 2026, reinsurance renewals, while property catastrophe in other regions saw risk-adjusted rate decreases of between -7.5% and -25%.Gallagher Re’s latest 1st View Report examines the key April renewal season, highlighting a resilient reinsurance market amid geopolitical uncertainty, softening primary markets, and an unpredictable economic outlook. “The April renewals continued the themes observed at January 1, with cedants achieving significant risk-adjusted rate reductions across property and specialty lines, while casualty pricing remained broadly…
It’s been more than two years since I wrote an analysis based on Surplus Line Association of California insight and data for an Insurance Journal article forecasting that the state’s homeowners insurance market was entering a structural transition driven primarily by population decline, inflation and admitted‑carrier exits. At the time, new excess and surplus policy count was only beginning to rebound after several years of contraction, and the data suggested that broad socioeconomic forces—rather than catastrophe trends—were setting the stage for change. Related: ‘Structural Shift’ Occurring in California Surplus Lines Mikhail Gorshunov In a March 2025 Insurance Journal analysis, I…