Archive for January, 2012

The industry loss warranty (ILW) market is on the up in 2012 according to a report published by Willis Re, the reinsurance broking arm of Willis Group. Loss activity experienced during 2011 has driven buyers to seek protection and ILW’s are one area set to benefit, with Willis Re predicting growth of as much as […]

Diversity and the hunt for diversification are key topics which regularly come up in our articles, our discussions with participants in the market and our coverage of deals and transactions in the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities spaces. Diversity is a factor which enables the market to grow, encourages investors to enter the market, makes […]

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which is the main location that weather futures and derivatives are traded, has experienced a significant drop in the volume of contracts traded across the exchange during 2011 when compared to the prior year. The CME has been experiencing good growth each year but 2011 saw a decline in volumes […]

As we wrote yesterday, the Ibis Re II Ltd. Series 2012-1 catastrophe bond from sponsor Assurant has closed at an upsized $130m. This two tranche cat bond transaction, issued by Cayman Islands domiciled Ibis Re II, will provide sponsor Assurant with three years of U.S. hurricane cover on a per-occurrence, industry loss basis. This is […]

Two of the catastrophe bonds which are still being marketed to investors are likely to upsize before close according to sources in the investor community. Demand has been strong for both the latest cat bond from Assurant, Ibis Re II Ltd. Series 2012-1 and the return to the cat bond market from Zenkyoren with their […]

It’s been another busy week in the cat bond, insurance-linked securities and reinsurance markets and we’ve had a lot of new topics to cover. As well as our usual market news and analysis we’ve published some interviews which asked leading market participants for their predictions for the year ahead, unsurprisingly these have proved popular. Here […]

The variable rate note programme and securities issued by the Vitality Re III Ltd. special purpose vehicle have been admitted for listing to the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange. The recently completed medical benefit linked insurance-linked security transaction provides insurer Aetna with a source of reinsurance cover against medical benefit claims breaching pre-defined trigger points on […]

German reinsurer Hannover Re have again utilised the capital markets for their retrocession renewal through their proportional retrocession programme which they call K Cession. Previously called K6, Hannover Re have been bringing retrocessional risks to capital markets investors since as far back as 1995.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper reports that some of the local councils in the UK (local government authorities) are seriously looking at weather derivatives as a way to hedge the excess costs of severe winter weather. The UK has been hit by two severely cold winters with unusual amounts of snow and ice in recent years, […]

Swiss Re’s latest Successor X Ltd. catastrophe bond transaction appears to have completed as two tranches of notes have listed on the Cayman Islands stock exchange. Initially the Successor X Ltd. Series 2012-1 deal was constructed of three tranches of notes, but just two have listed on the exchange. We’re unsure whether the third tranche […]