Tradecraft ILS Advisors has been launched as a new independent consulting and advisory firm focused on the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market by well-known industry executive and former AXIS ILS leader Kyle Freeman.With Tradecraft ILS Advisors, Freeman aims to work with organisations to help them in their strategic decision-making, transaction negotiations, contract structuring, and analysis, of insurance-linked securities opportunities and risk transfer arrangements. The consultancy will work with both new market entrants and experienced ILS market participants that are looking to innovate in the space, while presumably Freeman’s experience would also be invaluable to investors looking at the asset class. Freeman…
Author: Awais
Acrisure’s CEO told employees that about 2,250 of them won’t be with the company by the end of 2027. The Grand Rapids, Michigan-based global broker is planning to reduce its headcount by about 11%, mostly in the U.S., said a memo from CEO Greg Williams to employees. Acrisure has about 19,000 team members, according to its website. Layoffs at the private equity-backed company started May 21 and will “continue in phases into 2027,” said Williams. Acrisure did not immediately respond to a request for comment but Williams’ memo said the company is entering a “new phase of execution.” Related: Viewpoint:…
A 36-year-old Ohio man has been sentenced for computer fraud after causing more than $860,000 in losses, Acting U.S. Attorney John G.E. Marck announced. Maxwell Schultz, Columbus, Ohio, pleaded guilty Nov. 18, 2025. Senior U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal has now ordered him to serve 24 months in federal prison to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. At the hearing, the court heard about the damage and sophistication of the attack and how Schultz used another employee’s account to mask his intrusion which led to the investigation of that account initially. In handing down the sentence,…
Ecologists are concerned that the war in the Middle East risks creating an environmental disaster, as satellite images show that the number of oil slicks in the Persian Gulf has increased significantly since the beginning of the conflict in the region in late February. “If it disperses towards a coastal system, that’s going to have detrimental impacts to any bird species, fishing resources and communities that are dependent on them,” said Liz Atwood, a senior scientist at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, a UK-based research center. Experts said the slicks could be the result of attacks on ships or on oil…
The Ebola outbreak probably started months ago in central Africa and spread undetected until a super-spreader event in early May, possibly a funeral, World Health Organization officials said. The rare Bundibugyo strain circulated for “a couple months” before being identified in blood samples on May 15, Anaïs Legand, WHO’s technical lead for viral hemorrhagic fevers, said at a briefing Wednesday. The first confirmed death took place April 20, and experts used social media posts to reconstruct the recent progress of the virus after the super-spreader event on May 5. Two factors complicated efforts to identify the virus earlier. Authorities used…
Vermont voters will have the chance to weigh in on another amendment to the state’s constitution this fall. The proposal, which got a final sign-off from the House last Wednesday, is aimed at ensuring all people are treated equally under the law regardless of their race, ethnicity, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or nationality. A statewide vote is the last step in the yearslong process that PR.4, or any other proposed change to Vermont’s founding document, must follow. The Senate, where the measure was first proposed nearly a decade ago, gave its final sign-off to the…
The U.S. property/casualty insurance industry posted another record in the first quarter of 2026, with a combined ratio of 89.5—before policyholder dividends—standing as the best first-quarter underwriting result in at least 25 years. The insight comes from S&P Global Market Intelligence, which also said the first-quarter 2026 ratio including policyholder dividends was 91.9, better than any comparable result recorded since 2006. Translated into dollars, the underwriting gain is roughly $22.1 billion, a figure that was driven primarily by exceptional results in the homeowners multiperil and private auto lines, according to S&P GMI. The result comes amid heightened competition in key…
A federal judge on Wednesday refused to postpone a trial that is scheduled to start next month for civil claims stemming from the 2024 collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, rejecting a request for a delay by companies involved in the deadly disaster. U.S. District Judge James Bredar said the civil trial will start as scheduled on June 1 despite the recent filing of criminal charges against companies that managed the container ship Dali, which lost power and crashed into the Key Bridge in the early-morning hours of March 26, 2024. Six construction workers who had been filling potholes…
WILLIAMSTON, N.C. — Two years after her brother’s death, Debra Pierce still wonders whether the 50-year-old would have survived his heart attack if her local hospital hadn’t closed. “The sad thing is we’ll never know if he could have been saved that night or not, because we don’t have a higher level of care in this county,” Pierce said as she stood outside the mobile home where she last hugged her brother. Emergency crews from a neighboring town worked on Stanley Sears for a half hour but couldn’t revive him for the long drive to the closest hospital, records show.…
The mid-year 2026 property catastrophe reinsurance renewals are seeing pricing outcomes skewing towards the worst end of a -15% to-20%+ range, while catastrophe bonds have become more of a competitive threat to reinsurers now given longer-durations of cover and better rates, according to Aditya Dutt, President of Aeolus Capital Management.Dutt was speaking with insurance sector focused equity analysts from investment bank Jefferies recently and gave his views on the state of the reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) marketplace, as well as the renewal dynamics being seen in 2026. At the mid-year renewals, property catastrophe reinsurance pricing is seen to be…
The nonprofit giant has offered health insurance for decades. But recent challenges, including higher costs and regulatory changes, have placed Providence in an untenable position, according to the integrated system’s CEO.
Shell Plc is facing off with climate activists at the top Dutch court over demands for legally enforceable emissions cuts on Europe’s biggest oil and gas company. The Netherlands branch of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, is try to convince judges that the London-based company has a duty to reduce its CO2 emissions to 45% below 2019 levels by 2030 to keep its net zero 2050 target on track. Shell disagrees, arguing that lawmakers, and not courts, should have the power to set limits on a company. Friday’s hearing at the Supreme Court follows a long legal battle testing whether…
Airbus and Air France were found guilty on Thursday of corporate manslaughter by a Paris appeals court over the 2009 Rio-Paris plane crash that killed 228 passengers and crew, three years after being acquitted in a lower court. “Justice has absolutely been done,” Daniele Lamy, president of the AF447 victims’ association, who lost her son in the accident, said outside the courtroom. Relatives of some of those who died when the Airbus A330 vanished in darkness and plunged into the Atlantic during a storm listened to the verdict in silence after a 17-year legal battle over responsibility for France’s worst…
Canopius Group, the London-based specialty and property/casualty re/insurer, announced the launch of a spoilage product, a cyber-triggered spoilage cover designed to protect businesses when a cyber incident renders their perishable stock unsellable. When cyber incidents impact the systems that manage temperature, quality controls or environmental storage conditions, the impact can go far beyond operational downtime – it can determine whether products remain safe, compliant and fit for sale. Canopius said the UK Prudential Regulation Authority’s latest Dynamic General Insurance Stress Test reinforces the growing relevance of this risk. Its cyber scenario specifically includes the spoilage of perishable stock, underscoring the…