Category Archives: insurance

How dangerous is AIG? Michael Lewitt tells us, in today’s NYT: There is a substantial possibility that A.I.G. will be unable to meet its obligations and be forced into liquidation. A side effect: Its collapse would be as close to … Continue reading →

When it comes to the monolines, I’ve had quite a lot of sympathy for MBIA in general and for its CEO Jay Brown in particular. But if he carries on like this, that sympathy won’t last long: MBIA Inc. said … Continue reading →

AIG’s earnings yesterday were horrible, no doubt about it, and the stock market meted out condign punishment: American International Group Inc., the biggest U.S. insurer by assets, fell the most since going public in 1969 after writing down more than … Continue reading →

MP McQueen has a front-page WSJ article today attacking property insurers for, um, well, it’s not entirely clear what they’re supposed to have done wrong. Apparently they use something called "computerized catastrophe modeling": Crafted by several independent firms and used … Continue reading →

Gari finds a gem in an FSA presentation: Of its roughly $19 billion investment portfolio, $13.5 billion is parked in residential mortgage-backed securities, and of those RMBS holdings, almost $8 billion is first lien subprime. Bill Ackman, as we all … Continue reading →

Josh Rosner got in touch after I said he was "full of crap" for saying that MBIA thinks it can’t make its obligations. He’s been talking to NYSID too, so I asked him to elaborate on exactly what he thought … Continue reading →

Ouch! This news is really bad for MBIA: Moody’s has slashed its ratings by even more than it cut the ratings on Ambac. It’s a deep cut, with real financial consequences: This ratings action will give certain holders of guaranteed … Continue reading →

I had a very interesting conversation with Hampton Finer of the New York State Insurance Department this afternoon, on the subject of MBIA. He’s a regulator, it’s his job to be worried about the entities he’s regulating. And when one … Continue reading →

With respect to MBIA’s attack on the NYT’s reporting, it’s clear at this point that the newspaper doesn’t need to defend itself: there’s no shortage of bloggers willing to do that for it. Yves Smith is probably the most vocal: … Continue reading →

The NYT tells us in a headline today that "MBIA Debt Is Setting Up a Quandary". There’s real news here – that in practice it could be very difficult for New York’s insurance regulator, Eric Dinallo, to take over MBIA’s … Continue reading →

On Friday, I said that there’s a strong case to be made for the existence of municipal bond insurance, "since these bonds are generally bought by retail investors who can’t be expected to do sophisticated credit analysis". Commenter efranco then … Continue reading →

I got a phone call Thursday afternoon from MBIA spokesman Kevin Brown. He mainly wanted to clear up one thing about my blog this morning: MBIA Insurance Corp is not, technically, "going into run-off". It’s just not writing much in … Continue reading →

Yves Smith is very unhappy about the fact that MBIA isn’t throwing $1.1 billion of its shareholders’ money into the black hole that is its insurance subsidiary. She calls the decision "shameful" and "scandalous", but it seems simply sensible to … Continue reading →

Remember how I liked the way that new MBIA CEO Jay Brown writes letters? Well he’s gone one better now, and actually started leaving comments on blogs – or at least a comment on Floyd Norris’s blog. Norris didn’t like … Continue reading →