Quanta pulls out of property pending review

Quanta Holdings is to make a strategic, but possibly temporary withdrawal from technical risk property and property reinsurance business for “next few months” pending a review. Tobey J. Russ, Quanta's chief executive commented, "We have been executing our strategy to develop our specialty insurance and reinsurance businesses throughout 2005. Unfortunately, our results have been overshadowed by the unprecedented frequency and magnitude of the windstorm events over the last two years. The frequency and severity of these events have caused us grave concerns about the prospects for profitability in our technical risk property and property reinsurance lines of business. Accordingly we have determined to take the next few months to conduct an internal analysis of this business and the efficacy of the catastrophe models. Pending the outcome of this analysis, we will discontinue the writing of new business in these areas."

Earlier AM Best had placed Quanta’s financial strength and issuer credit ratings under review with negative implications. Mr Russ reacted to the news with the comment "We are disappointed with AM