Archive for August, 2008

A mandatory evacuation order has been issued for New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav moves into the Gulf of Mexico and bears down on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The storm is currently packing sustained winds of 120mph and as it moves into the Gulf many of the 3,500 plus oil rigs and platforms are evacuating workers […]

Gustav is still traversing the Caribbean this morning. Jamaica bore the brunt of it’s near hurricane force winds a few hours ago and the Caymans are next in it’s path. Interest in catastrophe options such as cat-in-a-box deals has risen considerably with offshore oil platform owners getting nervous and checking out the potential pricing of […]

Hurricane Gustav is currently not a hurricane, the storm was downgraded to a tropical storm after stalling over Haiti which took more power out of it than was originally expected. The time spent over Haiti has also moved the track of Gustav and he’s now heading straight for Jamaica. Maximum sustained winds are currently around […]

Standard & Poor’s have issued a report on the market for natural catastrophe bonds and how it has faired under the current economic gloom and credit crunch. The report ‘Nat Cat Insurance Bonds Buck The Credit Crunch Trend’ (available to Ratings Direct subscribers) concludes that catastrophe insurance linked securities and catastrophe bonds have proven generally […]

The effects of weather risk on a countries economy depends on a number of factors including how severe the weather is in that region, how developed the nation is, how much the nation depends on weather sensitive industries such as agriculture and how much they hedge or mitigate those risks. Weatherbill have released a really […]

Hurricane Gustav has intensified further since our earlier post. Gustav is now packing 90mph sustained winds. The storm has slammed into Haiti and early reports suggest damage could be widespread. Once done with Haiti Gustav is now forecast to skirt the south of Cuba where it will be over some of the warmest waters in […]

Here’s a great article from the latest edition of Canadian Underwriter magazine. Titled ‘Pulling the Parametric Trigger‘ the article discusses the use of parametric triggers in catastrophe bonds. The article is written by employees of Risk Management Solutions. Well worth a read!

Tropical Depression Fay is just beginning to fizzle out over Alabama it’s looking like damages from the flooding along her track will be the major loss. Having looked like such an innocuous storm Fay crossed Florida three times dumping as much as 25 inches of rain on some places on her track. Now there are […]

An interesting article has been released on the Livescience website. Written by Joanne Ho of the University of Washington it discusses some research she has been undertaking into ways to protect communities against wildfires and focuses on reinsuring the insurers who provide the cover for California fires. It mentions that by ensuring that people are […]

Here’s an interesting report into the potential downsides of a Federal solution to natural catastrophe reinsurance. Sonecon LLC has issued a paper looking into the ramifications for taxpayers and the private market if the proposed legislation gets the go ahead. The report concludes that interference in the well functioning private markets could cause massive costs […]