The new company, Alexander Underwriting Services (AUS), formed at the beginning of the year, is designed to help manage run-off, restructuring or disposal of insurance and reinsurance companies or intermediaries, as well as specific lines of insurance.

The company will also arrange retrospective reinsurance protection and offer specialised consulting in areas that include environmental and latent disease claims and organisational and process re-engineering.

AUS chairman and CEO Mr. Dan R. Osterhout said: "We provide a complete range of services to help companies address the challenges, and leverage the opportunities, that arise from insurance and reinsurance management run-off.'' From commutation of assumed exposures to determination of reserves and management of insurance collections, AUS provides specialised resources and market access, enabling companies with books of business or subsidiaries in run-off, to focus on their core business.

Parent company A&A Services Inc. is a global organisation of professional advisers providing risk management, insurance brokerage and human resource management consulting services from offices in more than 80 countries.

The firm has faced a substantial amount of litigation in recent years, and a number of civil actions have been either taken out against them or by them against other firms.

A company spokesman said that the firm may have faced a little more litigation than most brokers because the firm owned insurance companies and "It is common in reinsurance and insurance that litigation is rife.'' He said that there had been a number of settlements in the recent past and that "A&A has the most honourable position over the last ten years, meeting every obligation.'' AUS offices are located here, in Atlanta, London and New York.