The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) said on Tuesday that it would be implementing plans to reform the payment protection insurance (PPI) sector. In a policy statement the FSA said that sellers of PPI would have until December 1 2010 to prepare for the new rules. The FSA's measures are designed to ensure that customers are treated more fairly and that they are better informed when they buy the product. FSA Director of conduct risk said that "we will be monitoring the implementation of our guidance closely to ensure real change is delivered".

Rating agency Standard & Poor's has upgraded Paris Re to AA- from A+ because the reinsurer is now considered to be core to PartnerRe Ltd, which acquired the business in October last year. S&P had already upgraded Paris Re by a single notch (IIN24, December 4 2009). PartnerRe acquired Paris Re, formerly the reinsurance arm of Axa, from a consortium of international investors led by Stonepoint Capital-managed fund Trident III. The outlook on Paris Re is negative, reflecting S&P's outlook on PartnerRe and its other operating entities. S&P analyst Laline Carvalho said that "over the next six to 18 months, we expect that these entities will be fully merged and integrated into the operations of PartnerRe". S&P said that PartnerRe's H1 2010 operating result was reasonable, given its strong presence in property/catastrophe and other severity-driven lines, and low use of retrocession. PartnerRe's combined ratio for H1 was 103.8%, up form 85.9% in the same period last year.

Chartis, the non-life division of New York-based AIG, has increased its underwriting capacity from the Oil Rig unit of its Global Marine & Energy Division to $200m from $150m. Chartis said that this "substantial" increase highlighted the commitment of Chartis to offer "a broad range of insurance protection to the upstream and offshore segment of the oil and gas extractive industries worldwide". Oil Rig has teams in Houston and London. Oil Rig president Dorian Grey said that "this increase in capacity enables us to continue our support for a vital segment of the global economy".

Allianz CEO Michael Diekmann has suggested that the introduction of the Solvency II regime be postponed. Allianz has expressed concerns at the way some European regulators in CEIOPS have laid down rules for the implementation of the new system. In principle Allianz backs treating insurance as economic risk and for several years has carried out stress tests along the lines of those that currently will be introduced from the beginning of 2013. One possible upshot of Solvency II could be Allianz following the lead of Zurich Financial Services and relocating all of its risk into a single entity carrier — in Zurich's case, in Dublin. Mr Diekmann noted that Allianz had experience of implementing such a plan via its credit insurer subsidiary Euler Hermes and its travel/emergency assistance company Mondial. However, he insisted that no such a decision had yet been taken.