Latest Germany Headlines

All the headlines from our Germany Topic Page, ordered by recency.

German Tax Law Change Would Benefit Insurers

Oct 14 2003 // The German government is poised to introduce legislation that would change tax laws applicable to the country’s insurers, resulting in a substantial reduction in the amount of taxes they must pay. Originally reported...

ERC Announces Appointments

Sep 26 2003 // Overland Park, Kan.-based GE’s Employers Reinsurance Corporation (ERC) announced several new appointments.David Bassi is the new global risk and underwriting leader for ERC’s P/C reinsurance unit; Cora...

Allianz German P/C Operations Post Premium Gains

Aug 20 2003 // Allianz Property and Casualty Group Germany, which combines the property and casualty insurance business of the German Allianz companies, achieved a positive underwriting result in the first half-year of 2003 as gross...

Allianz Posts Strong 1st Half Results, $115 Million Profit

Aug 14 2003 // Germany’s Allianz confounded many analysts’ forecasts by reporting strong gains in most of its operations, posting a net profit of 102 million euros ($115.26 million) for the first half of 2003. The...

S&P Raises Gerling Allgemeine Rtgs. to BBB-/Watch Positive

Aug 1 2003 // Standard & Poor’s reported it raised to ‘BBB-‘ from ‘BB+’ its long-term counterparty credit and insurer financial strength ratings on Germany-based non-life insurer, Gerling-Konzern...

Court Decision Clears the Way for Gerling to Sell GKG; S&P Comments

Jun 25 2003 // Germany’s Gerling Group announced that the Hessen Higher Administrative Court in Kassel has dismissed an appeal by BaFin, the German financial supervisory authority, from an earlier decision by the Frankfurt...

Allianz Shows Improvements, But Posts $593 Million Q1 Net Loss

May 16 2003 // Germany’s Allianz reported a first quarter net loss of 520 million euros ($593.06 million), mostly due to another series of writedowns in the value of its investments, but from an operating point of view...

Best Assigns ‘B++’ Rating to Sovag

May 9 2003 // A.M. Best Co. announced that it has assigned a financial strength rating of B++ (Very Good) to SCHWARZMEER UND OSTSEE Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft SOVAG (Sovag) of Hamburg, Germany with a stable outlook.Although based...

ICHEIC Updates List of Potential Insurance Claimants

May 1 2003 // The International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims is in the process of updating its website – www.icheic.org – to include as many as 379,000 new names of potential claimants, including families and...

German Gov’t Denies Lufthansa Terrorist Coverage

Apr 18 2003 // The German government recently announced it would not give state aid to Deutsche Lufthansa AG in the event of a terrorist attack, according to Dow Jones Newswires. The Finance Ministry cited insurers’ present...

S&P Ratings on Gerling to Remain on CreditWatch

Apr 4 2003 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services reacted to the news that talks between Germany’s Gerling Group and HDI have broken off (See IJ Website April 3) with an announcement that its current ‘BB+’...

Best Lowers Allianz Ratings, Company Denies Report on Asset Sales

Mar 24 2003 // A.M. Best Co. announced that it has lowered the financial strength rating to A+ (Superior) from A++ (Superior) of Germany’s Allianz AG and its core subsidiaries. It also lowered the ratings on Allianz’s senior...

Allianz Posts $1.28 Billion 2002 Loss; Cites Write-downs, Dresdner, Flood Losses

Mar 20 2003 // Germany’s Allianz AG joined the parade of big insurance companies that had a very bad year in 2002. For the first time since the end of the Second World War Europe’s largest insurer posted an annual loss, and...

Dietmar Zietsch Appointed Chairman of SCOR Deutschland Management Board

Jan 14 2003 // Dietmar Zietsch, who currently serves as Deputy Chairman of SCOR Deutschland, has been appointed Chairman of the Management Board of SCOR’s German subsidiary effective as of March 1, 2003. Zietsch, 48, holds a...

RMS Estimates Losses from Recent European Windstorm Could Reach $940 Million

Jan 9 2003 // California’s Risk Management Solutions, Inc. (RMS), a global provider of products and services for catastrophe risk management, announced that overall losses from Windstorm Calvann, which swept through France and...

Henning Schulte-Noelle to Step Down As Allianz CEO

Dec 19 2002 // In a somewhat surprising, but not entirely unexpected move, Henning Schulte-Noelle announced he is stepping down from his position as the Chairman of the Board of Management of Allianz AG at the end of the Annual General...

AXA’s German Division in Talks to Sell Austrian Operations

Dec 18 2002 // AXA Konzern AG (Germany), a subsidiary of the French insurance group, is in discussions to sell its business in Austria, AXA Konzern AG (Austria) to a group of shareholders of Vienna-based UNIQA Versicherungen AG. No...

S&P Lowers Munich Re Ratings to ‘AA+’

Dec 12 2002 // Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services announced that it has lowered its long-term counterparty credit and insurer financial strength ratings on the world’s largest reinsurance group, Munich Reinsurance Co....

A.M. Best Affirms Munich Re’s ‘A++’ (Superior) Rating

Dec 9 2002 // A.M. Best Co. has affirmed the ‘A++’ (Superior) financial strength ratings of Munich Re and its core subsidiaries with a negative outlook. Best, however downgraded Munich Re’s 1.115 billion Euro ($1.126...

Gerling Global – Going, Going, Gone

Nov 25 2002 // Asbestos, the weak equity markets and Sept. 11 have indirectly claimed another victim. Gerling-Konzern Globale Ruckversicherungs—AG (GKG), the reinsurance arm of Germany’s Gerling Group, announced at the end of...