Contract Certainty – A Market Driven Approach

The SEC and Spitzer investigations in the US, and the FSA’s calls for market reform in the UK, with the goal of contract certainty by 2007, will have farreaching implications for the insurance and reinsurance markets. What are the likely consequences for the ART market?

The finite (re)insurance markets have come under considerable scrutiny recently. The SEC and the New York attorneygeneral, Eliot Spitzer, instigated the process towards the end of last year, with other States following. The SEC and Spitzer investigations were primarily concerned with a perceived lack of transparency over the accounting treatment of financial (re)insurance and the need for risk transfer. This has led many (re)insurers to review transactions entered into, often several years ago, to consider whether they will withstand external scrutiny in the cold light of 2005 and, in some cases, to review their involvement in the market per se. This is not surprising when Mr Spitzer has said he views "the whole