What’s New: In Brief (January 17, 2008)

Thomas V. Ealy, Willis North America’s chief operating officer, has been appointed to lead the company’s commercial and consumer segments for both Canada and the United States.
Ealy will continue in his current role until a successor is named.
The commercial segment includes not only small and medium-sized enterprises, but also managing general agent and affinity programs, public entity risk pools and group captives.
The consumer segment includes personal insurance for high net worth individuals and families along with affinity groups, a Willis statement says.
Ealy has been with the company for about six years. Prior to his work as COO, he led its Chicago and Milwaukee offices and helped create and lead its Client Advocate professional development program in North America. He will relocate to Chicago.

A.M. Best Co. has maintained PartnerRe Ltd. [NYSE:PRE]’s ‘A+’ financial strength rating following PartnerRe’s recent announcement that it will write down its entire [US]$74 million investment in ChannelRe, a privately-held financial guarantee reinsurer.
“This charge represents PartnerRe’s full economic exposure to ChannelRe and results in a carrying value of zero on a going forward basis,”A.M. Best noted in a press release. “The carrying value of PartnerRe’s third-quarter investment in ChannelRe was [US]$74 million, which represented a 20% interest.
“Moreover, A.M. Best’s recent affirmation of the issuer credit rating (ICR) of PartnerRe [at ‘a-‘] anticipated further devaluation of Channel Re, resulting in a 100% risk charge of the investment in PartnerRe’s risk-based capital model.”
A.M. Best said it expected PartnerRe likely to report “another very strong operating performance for the full year of 2007 while maintaining superior capitalization.”