CNA Financial Corporation (CNA) Q2 FY08 Earnings Call[...]

Security Capital Assurance, a bond insurer that has guaranteed $155bn of bonds, has averted insolvency after XL Capital, the Bermuda-based insurance company, agreed to pay $1.78bn to SCA and Merrill Lynch agreed to cancel $3.5bn worth of CDO hedges in exchange for $500m. Shares in XL, which in February wrote [...]

Bank insurers worry about taking on billions in additional risk.[...]

Hartford Financial's second-quarter net income dropped 13% on securities losses and lower profits in the property-and-casualty insurance business.[...]

Merrill Lynch says will sell most of its troubled asset-backed securities and terminate hedges linked to bond insurers, essentially [...]

A couple of weeks ago, the Government Accountability Office suggested that Medicare consider mimicking private insurers' use of prior approval of diagnostic imaging tests to curb unnecessary scans. Everybody who pays health-care bills is struggling with exploding expenses from diagnostic imaging. So we noted with interest a report out this [...]