Archive for April, 2011

A.M. Best have joined Standard & Poor’s in downgrading the rating of the catastrophe bond notes issued in 2008 by Topiary Capital Ltd. (our article on S&P’s downgrade here). Topiary Capital, while not expecting a loss due to the 11th March earthquake disaster in Japan, has been activated meaning it is now at risk of […]

Aetna have completed their latest insurance-linked security transaction with a successful issuance under their Vitality Re II Ltd. Cayman Islands SPV. They’ve secured $150m of catastrophe bond type cover for their Health Re Inc. subsidiary making this their second medical benefit insurance-linked security transaction.

Zenkyoren, the largest cooperative insurer in Japan and holder of one of the largest reinsurance programs in the country, has given a preliminary estimate of over $7.9 billion (around 650 billion yen) for losses incurred during the 11th March earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.

A further $200m of catastrophe bond notes have matured in the last few days. Chubb Groups 2008 cat bond East Lane Re II Ltd., which provided them with cover for various perils including hurricanes, earthquakes, winter storms and wildfires in the U.S. and Canada, has matured without loss.

We’ve covered a lot of the news regarding the growth of microinsurance in the Philippines, particularly microinsurance for weather and disaster cover pilots, and the Asian country seems to be continuing to adopt insurance for low-income people quicker than many other countries.

The recent outbreak of tornadoes and severe weather in the U.S. Midwest has continued (as we wrote just over a week ago) and now looks set to continue with convective weather forecasts suggesting it could continue for a few days more. To add to the record breaking number of tornadoes touching down, some parts of […]

The Life & Longevity Markets Association (LLMA) announced a milestone in their plans for the development of a market in tradeable longevity and mortality risk instruments yesterday with the news that they were to take ownership of the LifeMetrics Index which was created by J.P. Morgan.

The Life & Longevity Markets Association (LLMA), a not for profit association dedicated to promoting liquidity in the traded longevity and mortality risk markets, has announced their latest member reinsurer Munich Re. The largest reinsurer in the world takes membership of the LLMA to 12 they said yesterday.

PERILS AG, the independent Zurich-based company providing industry-wide European catastrophe insurance data and loss indices, have published their third newsletter update to the market (the first published this year). In the newsletter they cover some recent announcements and update the market on usage of their loss index in risk transfer transactions.

Finally the fate of one of the catastrophe bonds which was exposed to the 11th March earthquake and tsunami in Japan is made clear. Since the disaster re/insurers who have sponsored catastrophe bonds that had exposure to Japan quake have been waiting for risk modelling firms who act as calculation agents to report whether their […]