15th Mar 2006 15:43
Lancashire Holdings Limited15 March 2006 Lancashire Holdings Limited Hamilton, Bermuda, 15 March 2006 LANCASHIRE HOLDINGS LIMITED RESPONDS TO RATING AGENCY REVIEW HAMILTON, Bermuda (15th March 2006) - Lancashire Holdings Limited todayannounced that it has been notified that A.M. Best has placed its financialstrength rating of A- (Excellent) and its issuer credit rating of bbb- underreview with negative implications. A.M. Best have undertaken this rating review following our announcement of the1st April, 2006 departure by mutual consent of J. Alex Richards, RetrocessionUnderwriter and Vice President of Lancashire Insurance Company Limited. Lancashire recently announced the appointment of Simon Burton as Deputy ChiefUnderwriting Officer of Lancashire Insurance Company Limited, subject toapproval from the Bermuda Department of Immigration. This follows the recentannouncement of the appointment of Bryan Bumsted, Vice President andRetrocession Underwriter in February 2006. Richard Brindle, Chief Executive Officer said, "We are confident that this is atemporary situation and that A.M. Best will be fully satisfied and concludetheir review shortly. Based on the tremendous skills and experience brought byour new appointments, we believe that the strength of our underwriting team inBermuda will be significantly enhanced. We do not expect the A.M. Best review tomaterially impact our ability to write new business". Simon brings extensive technical and practical underwriting experience toLancashire Insurance Company Limited, in a wide range of short tail propertyclasses on an insurance, reinsurance and retrocessional basis. In addition,Simon brings additional management and actuarial expertise to our team inBermuda. Simon will join Lancashire from the ACE Group, where he was mostrecently employed as President, ACE Financial Solutions International. Prior tojoining ACE Simon worked as a consulting actuary at Tillinghast in London andBermuda where he specialised in the development of models for reinsuranceportfolios. Simon has 15 years of experience in the reinsurance industry andholds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Imperial College, Londonand a Diploma of Actuarial Techniques from the U.K. Institute of Actuaries. Bryan Bumsted joined Lancashire Insurance Company Limited as RetrocessionUnderwriter and Vice President from Everest Reinsurance Company, where heunderwrote a wide range of property programs including retrocession, catastropheexcess of loss and per risk excess of loss. Lancashire Holdings +1 441 278 8950Neil McConachie Financial Dynamics +44 (0)20 7269 7200Rob BailhacheNick Henderson www.lancashire.bm About Lancashire Lancashire was established in 2005 as a new insurance and reinsurance businessto take advantage of the favourable underwriting conditions expected to arisefrom the large insured losses incurred in 2004 and 2005. Lancashire was admitted to AIM on 16 December 2005 following an Offer of CommonShares to investors. The Common Shares trade on AIM under the ticker symbol LRE. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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