Archive for October, 2008

We’ve been writing about the risks of shortfall facing the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund for a few weeks now. It seems that there are other funds at risk due to the current economic climate and the latest to come to light is the North Carolina Beach Plan. The NC Beach Plan currently insures around $70b […]

It’s become apparent that reinsurers are going to have to wait until December to get a final loss estimate from the ISO’s Property Claims Services unit. This won’t please those waiting to here whether any instruments such as catastrophe futures, options or bonds have been triggered. The magnitude of losses is becoming clear in reports […]

Every so often I come across research papers that I just want to share with the Artemis readership and today I received a press release for a particularly apt one given the current financial climate. Weather Trends International have released a paper on weather trading and it’s correlation to financial market swings titled ‘What’s the […]

Risk Management Solutions (RMS) have revised their estimate of losses from hurricane Ike upwards to between $13-21b (from an original estimate of $7-12b). This is not unexpected as reinsurers have been registering loss levels which are much higher than expected. RMS say the final estimate will depend on the extent of storm surge losses and […]

Last week I posted about the worries that the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund may itself be a catastrophe waiting to happen. Now, Jeff Grady the President and CEO of the Florida Association of Insurance Agents has written an article on the issues Florida’s property insurance market is facing and likens the situation to the problems […]

Aon Re Global Fac, their facultative reinsurance broking arm, have launched an alternative solutions unit. This new unit aims to give their clients access to alternative forms of facultative reinsurance such as aptive and protected cell company reinsurance, alternative/finite reinsurance structures, reflector covers, credit enhancement, residual value insurance, advance payment guarantees and facilities and binders. […]

Swiss Re have come out as the company behind the Malawi-World Bank weather derivatives deal which I wrote about last week. In a press release on the Swiss Re website they say: Swiss Re announced that it has entered into a weather derivative contract with the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World […]

Amlin Plc have issued their latest estimate of losses sustained from Hurricane’s Ike and Gustav. They expect their own losses from these two storms to be $285m, net of reinsurance and reinstatement premiums. They have also announced their own estimate of market wide losses from Hurricane Ike. They expect Ike to cause in excess of […]

I just found a great article that I wanted to share with you all; consider it some reading for the weekend. Towers Perrin have a quarterly publication titled Emphasis and in the 3rd edition of 2008 (just released) they have a great article titled ‘All-Weather Insurance Securitization‘. The article discusses how insurance linked securities and […]

Energy Risk is reporting that Russian Trading Systems FORTS (futures and options market) is planning to launch weather futures in 2009. Development of the contracts is said to be complete but RTS originally announced the launch of these contracts back in 2007 (their website still says coming at the end of 2007) so we wait […]