London, UK based insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond investment manager Leadenhall Capital Partners has added a new hire to their team, taking them to eight people, and announced that they are targeting to further grow their assets under management. Earlier this month Leadenhall announced that their assets under management had passed $650m but todays announcement shows they aim to continue that growth.
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Back in January we wrote that U.S. crop insurance losses had hit record levels of $9 billion for the year 2011, with much of those losses attributed to freezing weather across the Southern U.S. states, droughts in the Plains, flooding along the Mississippi river, severe rainstorms and hail from severe thunderstorms. That beat the previous record from 2008 which was $8.67 billion, but as we said at the time the total was expected to rise further.
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The winter of 2011/2012 will be remembered not for extreme freezes, snowfall levels (although they were high in many areas) or winter windstorms (although the European season was marginally active, rather it will be remembered for being warmer than average. March 2012 was the warmest since records began in the U.S. and just the other day we wrote about reinsurer Renaissance Re’s energy and weather risk divisions losses due to warm weather. So it’s no surprise to hear that the winter weather has raised interest in weather derivatives.
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At least once every year the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund hits the headlines as people discuss the lack of financing the fund has to cope with an extremely severe Atlantic hurricane season. In 2012 this hasn’t changed, its’ still thought that the cat fund could only cope with two reasonably sized landfalling hurricanes and if one was to strike Miami head-on and at full strength then it’s probable that a single storm would be enough to wipe out all of the cat funds finances.
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French reinsurer SCOR have announced that they have extended the cover available to them through their natural catastrophe contingent capital facility which they launched back in 2010. They have elected to extend the innovative contingent capital solution, which acts as an event-driven guaranteed equity line, by an additional €75m taking the amount of cover SCOR’s existing contingent capital facility provides back up to €150m.
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Catastrophe bond risk capital outstanding could grow to $16 billion by end of 2012

May 16, 2012

Not only was April a record-breaking month in terms of the amount of risk capital issued in catastrophe bond transaction, as we wrote the other day, it also saw the amount of cat bond and ILS risk capital outstanding rise to $14.7 billion according to Swiss insurance-linked securities investment manager Plenum Investments. When Artemis last [...]

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Wells Fargo bring insurance trust products to the UK and EU

May 16, 2012

Wells Fargo & Company, the massive financial services group headquartered in the U.S., have announced that they are bringing their successful range of insurance trust products to the UK and EU. To date these insurance trust products have only been available in the U.S. where they are used in place of letters of credit and [...]

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PERILS AG industry loss data used for over $4 billion of risk transfer capacity

May 16, 2012

PERILS AG, the independent Zurich-based company providing industry-wide European catastrophe insurance data and loss indices,has published their latest newsletter today updating the market on the events of 2011 and the progress that PERILS have made. The last time we reported on PERILS progress they had just reached $3.18 billion of risk transfer capacity placed using [...]

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Capital market shows significant and growing appetite for catastrophe risk: Guy Carpenter

May 15, 2012

After a record first quarter for the catastrophe bond market, which featured a diverse mix of old and new perils, new structures and new capital providers the capital market continues to demonstrate significant and growing appetite for catastrophe risk, says intermediary Guy Carpenter‘s GC Securities division in their end of Q1 2012 cat bond market [...]

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April a record-breaking month for catastrophe bond risk capital issued

May 15, 2012

The huge Everglades Re Ltd. catastrophe bond which completed in April at a record $750m for a single cat bond helped the month become the strongest single month for volume of catastrophe bonds issued since the market began, according to the latest report from Swiss insurance-linked securities investment manager Plenum Investments. Four cat bonds completed [...]

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Dispute over reporting stations leads to weather insurance lawsuit

May 15, 2012

An interesting lawsuit is taking place in the U.S. between Mountain Creek Resort Inc., a ski resort operator, and Everest Indemnity Insurance Company, who provided Mountain Creek with weather insurance cover to protect them against a lack of snowfall during the peak ski season. It is rather strange though as the complaint seems to centre [...]

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More details on Travelers Long Point Re III catastrophe bond

May 14, 2012

The latest catastrophe bond of 2012 was launched last week when we revealed that U.S. insurance group Travelers would be returning to the cat bond market with their third transaction, Long Point Re III Ltd. This deal see’s Travelers re-use the naming convention (with the addition of a space) of their two previous cat bonds, [...]

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Juniperus Capital adds Chris McKeown as new CEO, announces rebranding

May 14, 2012

Juniperus Capital, the Bermuda-based insurance- linked investment manager focused on collateralized reinsurance, catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities, today announced that a veteran of the re/insurance industry Chris McKeown has joined the firm as Chief Executive Officer. They also announced today that the firm intends to rebrand themselves within the next few weeks.

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Catastrophe bond price return index continues decline, total return index rises

May 14, 2012

With primary catastrophe bond issuance still flowing strongly, the latest cat bond Long Point Re III launched last week, investors are still jostling to gain access to and accommodate the latest transactions to come to market. The results of this and other price pressures is a continued decline on price returns of outstanding catastrophe bonds. [...]

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Renaissance Re loses out due to warmer than average winter

May 14, 2012

Bermuda domiciled reinsurer Renaissance Re’s weather and energy risk management arm, RenRe Energy Advisors Ltd., have seen a large seasonal loss over the winter due to warmer than normal conditions across the U.S. and Europe according to their recent quarterly earnings call (transcript available here). It’s their second quarterly loss in succession as both Q4 [...]

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