Category Archives: insurance

The Prince of Wall Street has an intriguing idea: why can’t municipalities set up their own monoline? Why do we not see the big issuers of municipal bonds i.e. the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the State … Continue reading →

I don’t want to drag this debate over municipal bonds on too long: I’ve pretty much said my piece. But I would like to ask John Carney just one question. Today, he says this: Investors in municipal bonds are interested … Continue reading →

Jesse Eisinger is of course eternally grateful for my defense of his article against the imprecations of John Carney. But he has more to add: I’m grateful that John took some time out from reporting on the toilet situation at … Continue reading →

I think I’m falling a little for Jay Brown, now on his second tour of duty as MBIA CEO. From his letter to shareholders: As the leading monoline, we are also a convenient and attractive target for self-interested parties such … Continue reading →

Now that S&P has affirmed the triple-A ratings on both MBIA and Ambac, Bill Ackman et al are going to have to start playing the long game. With their triple-As seemingly firmly in hand for the time being, any implosion … Continue reading →

Has anybody not seen Bill Ackman’s latest plan for what should happen to the monolines? It’s been doing the email rounds for a couple of days now, but finally it’s hit the web: if you want to download the full … Continue reading →

Eliot Spitzer, having fought and won his battle with investment banks when he was New York’s attorney general, has now set his sights on the monolines. There are two diametrically opposed ways of looking at what’s going on, which is … Continue reading →

In the March issue of Portfolio, Jesse Eisinger says that the municipal bond-insurance business is a racket. Back in December I noted that US municipalities pay $2 billion a year to the monolines for the dubious privilege of receiving a … Continue reading →

Warren Buffett: A mensch with a triple-A rating. Just as the monoline bond insurers are melting down, he offers to ride to the rescue – for an undisclosed fee, of course – and reinsure their liabilities, solving their problems at … Continue reading →

Andrew Clavell has a really good blog entry on the monolines today, even as MBIA somehow managed to sell $700 million in new equity in the public markets, over and above the $300 million it sold to Warburg Pincus. (Which … Continue reading →

The WSJ puts an uncommonly-forthright forward-looking headline on its monoline story today: "Rescue Plans Won’t Prevent Downgrades". And it’s right. If the monolines’ plans for shoring up their capital bases come to fruition, they’re still likely to suffer the loss … Continue reading →

How is it possible that MBIA lost $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter in the wake of a monster $3.5 billion charge? Didn’t Jonathan Laing just tell us, in Barron’s, that its losses could never get so big so fast? … Continue reading →

Colin Barr: On Friday, analysts at Citi and Bank of America downgraded MBIA and Ambac shares – to hold from buy. Skeptics might note that the move comes with Ambac stock down 94 percent over the past year and MBIA … Continue reading →

Today’s WSJ has a very good article on the fast-growing secondary market in life insurance policies, centering on the asset class’s undisputed leader, Coventry. It mentions that this market is objected to by the life insurance industry: Life settlements also … Continue reading →

When insurance companies have been in their business for decades or longer, while the open market in such things is very young, does it really make sense for insurance companies to use market valuations rather than their in-house models?
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