Archive for February, 2009

More details are emerging on the Mystic Re III cat bond issue from Liberty Mutual. I say Mystic Re III, and all news sources are reporting the name as such, however Standard & Poor’s have called it Mystic Re II in their reports. So some confusion reigns over what this deal is names, however clarity […]

The Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) has renewed it’s call for governments around the world to adopt the issuance of catastrophe bond structures to help better prepare them for natural disasters. In a report released yesterday, produced by the OECD, Swiss Re and Oliver Wyman, the OECD suggested that governments need to co-ordinate with each […]

Liberty Mutual are marketing their third catastrophe bond in the Mystic Re series. Mystic Re III is expected to be a $200m transaction providing Liberty Mutual with three years of coverage against U.S. hurricanes and earthquakes. The third catastrophe linked securitization of the year, this deal will take the cat bond market to $550m this […]

Brit Insurance Ltd’s catastrophe bond Fremantle Ltd. has had it’s rating upgraded by Fitch Ratings today. The ClassB notes have been upgraded to ‘AA’ and the Class A and C notes have been affirmed with no rating changes. The cat bond deal, which provided Brit with coverage against U.S. hurricanes, earthquakes, European windstorms, Japanese earthquakes […]

Marsh has teamed up with Berkshire Hathaway to create a windstorm insurance program aiming to bring capacity back to the hard-hit energy companies who operate in the Gulf of Mexico. The program has been called the Cost and Certainty Coverage Program (or Triple C for short) and carries $500m of aggregate, annual capacity. Underwritten by […]

Guy Carpenter have been awarded a grant by the Microinsurance Innovation Facility to allow them to develop a reinsurance facility for microfinance operations. Using the grant Guy Carpenter will create the infrastructure for a reinsurance pooling facility dedicated to microfinance risk transfer solutions. This will enable microfinance initiatives to access the global reinsurance and risk […]

After six months of quiet the catastrophe bond market has sprung to life with two deals in a short period of time. With confidence returning to the market this quarter is looking healthy in the market with investors not seeming too deterred by the financial market turbulence of late. Following on from Scor with their […]

Fitch Ratings has placed the notes of the £250m Zest transaction on rating watch negative. The Zest transaction securitised an open book of pensions business for Aegon subsidiary Scottish Equitable. The new rating reflects the continued pressure on the investment and financial markets and the potential impact to this deal. The deal had been structured […]

The weather futures trading market is looking incredibly healthy today after the news that Tradition has placed the largest ever volume for a specific weather futures contract at the CME. The deal entailed a Dutch auction style placement to protect their client from weather risks in the London, UK area. The extra capacity this massive […]

Scor have officially announce the closure of it’s Atlas Reinsurance V catastrophe bond today. This is the news the market has been waiting to hear, the successful resumption of the cat bond market after a period of uncertainty and zero issuance due to the economic climate and failure of Lehmans. It’s the first cat bond […]