Global broker Gallagher in July 2018 announced the acquisitions of three firms: Chicago-based Reassurance Holdings, including its subsidiaries Coverdell and Carefree Marketing. Founded in 1963, Coverdell is a licensed insurance broker, discount medical plan organization and third-party administrator, providing direct marketing of insurance and membership programs to many of the largest financial services institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Vince Di Benedetto and his associates will continue to work

Next Insurance in July 2018 raised $83 million in new financing, money it said will fuel its continued U.S. expansion as a full-service digital insurance carrier focused on the small business market. A California-based startup, Next Insurance debuted in 2016 as a digital insurance agency for small to midsize businesses. The new financing will allow Next to add more lines of insurance. The firm changed its agency status in

The OECD in July 2018 released its Annual Survey of Investment Regulations of Pension Funds 2018, which describes the main quantitative investment regulations that pension funds are subject to in OECD and a selection of IOPS member countries. It covers all types of pension plans, and concerns all forms of quantitative portfolio restrictions applied to pension funds at different legal levels. The 356-page survey’s findings conclude, in part, that:

Preliminary data, released in July 2018 by the OECD, shows an increase in life and/or non-life gross premiums of domestic insurance companies for 2017, with 40 out of 43 countries reporting. Gross premiums of domestic insurance companies rose in real terms in 15 countries in both the life and non-life sectors, and in 10 other countries in the life sector only, while another 15 reported rises in the non-life