Rating agencies took a well-deserved beating last week when they were called on the carpet by state regulators wary of trusting their assessments going forward, says NU Editor Sam Friedman in his blog today at www.NUSamSoapBox.com.

The world's two major insurance brokers earned a 100 percent positive rating on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) issues from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

Willis Group Holdings Ltd. said it has completed its acquisition of Herzfeld Willis S.A. (retail operation) and Willis S.A. (reinsurance operation) in Argentina. Terms of the deal were not released.

PartnerRe said it will expedite an estimated $2 billion stock-for-stock purchase of French-listed, Swiss-based reinsurer Paris Re.

Few Brazilian farmers buy agricultural insurance, in part, because product offerings don't meet their needs, they lack insurance awareness and the budget is low for premium subsidies, a study found.

Property and casualty insurers are increasing spending on information technology from 2008 to 2009 by 1.6 percent, down sharply from the prior two years, a survey found.

Standard & Poor's rating service lowered the financial strength rating of guarantee insurer MBIA Insurance Corp. over concern that it is still experiencing adverse loss development.

Just as there are bad people, there are bad cars, and claim adjusters and investigators need to know how to find them.