Best of Artemis, week ending 11th November 2012

Once again, hurricane Sandy dominated our coverage last week. The market is now waiting for updates on the estimates of insured industry losses from the storm, there may be more clarity later this week we understand. As always, you can read every market news story and article on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update and for your convenience here are the ten most popular news articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 11th November 2012:

1. Hurricane Sandy a qualifying event for Combine Re catastrophe bond: Moody’s
   The impact of hurricane Sandy on the northeast U.S. and the expected insurance industry losses, currently estimated at $7 billion to $20 billion is a credit negative event for the Combine Re Ltd. (Series 2012-1) catastrophe bond, according to rating agency Moody’s.
2. Credit Suisse says significant uncertainty in Sandy insured loss estimates
   Credit Suisse have not changed their first Sandy loss estimate (which we discussed in this article here) yet, but says that if insurance industry loss estimates rise much further the loss suffered by their ILS funds could increase disproportionately.
3. Most reinsurers to lose one fiscal quarter’s earnings from Sandy: Moody’s
   Ratings agency Moody’s has published some additional insight on the impact of hurricane Sandy on reinsurers in their latest CreditOutlook report. The article discusses the insight gained from a number of reinsurers earnings announcements and what they have said about the potential impact Sandy will have on their fourth quarter earnings.
4. Sandy mark-to-market losses evident on catastrophe bond indices
   We took another look last Monday at the Swiss Re cat bond indices to see how the market had reacted to Sandy and the potential scale of losses from the storm.
5. USAA’s estimate suggests all Residential Re cat bonds safe from Sandy loss
   Estimates published by USAA suggest that there will be no loss of principal to the Residential Re cat bonds but there will likely be an increase in the aggregate losses qualifying under the terms of some tranches of notes.
6. Illinois Teachers’ pension fund puts $40m into reinsurance with AQR
   AQR Capital Management, an investment management firm based in Greenwich, CT,are the latest with a reinsurance-linked investment offering to benefit from a commitment of funds from a U.S. public body pension fund.
7. Lancashire to launch $250m Saltire Re I collateralised sidecar facility
   Lancashire Holdings, a Bermuda and UK based provider of specialty insurance and reinsurance products,has announced that it is launching Saltire Re I, a fully collateralised Bermuda incorporated special purpose reinsurer.
8. Munich Re puts Sandy loss in “mid three digit million Euro” range
   Munich Re, the largest reinsurance company in the world, has told its investors that it currently expects to suffer a loss from hurricane Sandy in the “mid three digit million Euro” range. That could put their losses around the $640m mark.
9. Plenum Investments updates on catastrophe bond impact from Sandy
   In their latest update Plenum acknowledged the uncertainty that exists over the insured losses from Sandy and says that they have noticed some cat bond prices being marked down by as much as 25% this week.
10. USAA return to catastrophe bond market for 19th Residential Reinsurance deal
    This deal which is now being marketed to investors, with be the 19th Residential Re transaction from USAA in our Deal Directory.

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If you’re looking for details on catastrophe bond and ILS transactions our Deal Directory has more than 260 listed.

For tropical storm and hurricane tracking visit our 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season page.