And consortium partners Skuld, Paraline and Whittington company management have completed the acquisition of Whittington Insurance Markets Ltd, the London market operations of Whittington Group.

A Lloyd's delegation headed by Jose Ribeiro, Director of International Markets, will head for Mumbai on February 6 to 8. Managing agents and brokers interested in developing business in India will be on the trip. Lloyd's noted that from 2008 to 2010 Lloyd's gross written premiums originating in India were up 28% to $182m. It noted that "the expanding economy is increasing the number of new classes introduced to the non-life insurance market and developing demand for specialist products continue to create new insurance and reinsurance opportunities". Lloyd's said that its India strategy for 2012 was to improve the market's understanding of the Indian (re)insurance market and to "make doing business with India more comfortable". It also planned to lobby to obtain and onshore reinsurance licence for Lloyd's, and to raise awareness in India of the benefits of Lloyd's to India, either with or without an onshore licence. The trip, announced in December last year, will represent the first steps of Lloyd's to rebuild bridges after in 2009 it withdrew its representative to the country, amid frustration and annoyance at the lack of progress in liberalizing the Indian insurance sector, despite promises made to the Lloyd's chairman Lord Levene and then UK prime minister Gordon Brown. Lloyd's CEO Richard Ward said of India after the departure of Lord Levene that "the reality is it's such an important market: by 2030 it could be the fourth or fifth-largest economy and certainly larger than the UK". New Lloyd's chairman John Nelson supports the more conciliatory approach, backing continued lobbying in the battle to obtain an onshore reinsurance licence.

Bermudian re/insurer RenaissanceRe Holdings said yesterday that its Q4 results would include a $45m charge for losses from recent flooding in Thailand, with the proviso that "meaningful uncertainty remains" regarding the potential depth of the loss. RenRe said that the loss figure was net of earned reinstatement premiums assumed and ceded. The group said that Q4 results would also include an after-tax loss of $31m in connection with weather risk-management unit RenRe Energy Advisors owing to warmer-than-usual weather in the UK and parts of the US during the period. Unlike many other re/insurers, RenRe said that net revisions of loss estimates for the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand and other disasters earlier in 2011 were unlikely to have a significant impact on Q4 results.