On the QT: it’s silly season

I just hate to be right all of the time but no sooner had the subject of the cycle been aired (On the QT: Its a circle not a cycle) than we had Monsieur Maso declaring: “We will enter 2011 with a new dynamic,” which roughly translates as: “I had bloody well better get back the GWP I have managed to lose.”

Andy Haste, rightly bored with a UK GI market going nowhere, decided to ruin Aviva management’s summer recess (cue a scramble for flights back to Heathrow) by making a silly bid – not a silly idea of course, but a fairly silly price. Masterful!

The frenzied picking over the remains of NIG personal lines will keep the insurers occupied during a lethargic summer anyway. How’s that for RBS destroying shareholder value by letting the market do its worst?

Don’t worry, Brit to the rescue! Ray Cox, the new chief executive, is going to “build an efficient and dynamic business” which, er, they will then sell … Nice one Ray, get the parachute made in gold leaf.

The vultures, the predators, the lost and the foolish all come out for the silly season. You won’t have to wait long now for the inevitable. Fortunes are going to be lost in the desperate attempts being made for top line. The circle is king – a hard market cannot be too far away – hence the desperation to grow now. Get it right and you make a fortune, get it wrong and you are toast. I’m backing Haste to get it right but there will a few twists first.

Email me: sid@insurancetimes.co.uk or leave your comments here.