Archive for December, 2012

The volume of catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities issued in 2012 and listed in our Deal Directory has been helped over the magic $6 billion mark by a late-comer in the form of the second Compass Re Ltd. cat bond sponsored by American International Group (AIG) (was Chartis) subsidiary National Union Fire Insurance Co. of […]

We hope you all had a good Christmas break and that this last weekly ‘best of’ post of 2012 helps you catch up on any news you may have missed. We’d like to wish you all the best for what looks set to be a busy 2013 for the market! As always, you can read […]

Another catastrophe bond has completed in 2012 and once again it has upsized before the deal closed. Insurance group Zurich’s latest cat bond transaction Lakeside Re III Ltd., the third in the Lakeside series of deals, completed in the last week and upsized by $45m, from the $225m it was initially marketed at, to close […]

The convergence sector of the reinsurance market, where capital market money from investors is put to work in re/insurance transactions which are typically fully-collateralized, is primarily focused on writing high-yielding lines of business such as peak catastrophe risk. Some collateralized and convergence market players dabble in other segments of the market, such as energy or […]

Reinsurer Swiss Re has chosen to utilise an early redemption clause to redeem two tranches of mortality catastrophe bond notes issued through its Vita Capital IV Ltd. vehicle. The first tranche is the $75m Vita Capital IV Series 1 notes which were issued in November 2009, the second tranche is the $50m Series II issuance […]

The average return made by insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds, as measured by the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index, in November was a very acceptable 0.21% again demonstrating the ability of the market to recover quickly after a catastrophe event of the magnitude of hurricane Sandy. In October the average return across the 29 funds the index […]

One of the larger re/insurance industry mergers in recent years is on the cards for 2013 after Markel Corporation and Alterra Capital Holdings announced that their boards have unanimously approved a merger agreement this week. Under the merger terms Alterra is valued as worth approximately $3.13 billion. The merger will create a very large specialty […]

We’d like to take this chance to wish our readers, advertisers, sponsors, friends and partners a very Happy Holidays and all the best for a prosperous and successful 2013. We’ll keep you up to date on any breaking news over the festive period. As always, you can read every market news story and article on […]

Reinsurer Swiss Re has released preliminary estimates from its sigma division for the amount of insured losses that insurers and reinsurers will have to pay from both man-made and natural disasters in 2012. They estimate economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters will likely reach $140 billion in 2012 with the re/insurance industry being […]

Alternative reinsurance tools which enable transformation of risk to capital market interests should continue to gain market share, but will likely remain a niche product, within the global reinsurance market, said Swiss Re at their recent insurance-linked securities media event. They acknowledged at the event that the convergence of catastrophe bond and traditional reinsurance pricing […]