Best of Artemis, week ending 16th December 2012

The market continues to generate significant interest and buzz and as a result the news flow has been brisk again in the last week. As we head towards the end-of-year holidays we expect this to slow as focus turns to the reinsurance renewals. 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 16th December 2012:

1. Cayman creates new Class C reinsurance entity for catastrophe bond issuers
   The Cayman Islands has new legislation in place which it hopes will help it to grow its share of the global catastrophe bond and reinsurance market. Two new classes of reinsurer have been created, and amendments made to the Cayman’s immigration policies.
2. Swiss Re in first longevity contract including pension fund members yet to retire
   Reinsurer Swiss Re has announced the completion of an £800m ($1.3 billion) longevity insurance transaction with UK insurer LV=.
3. Pillar Capital add Transatlantic Holdings (TransRe) as new strategic partner
   Pillar Capital Holdings Limited, the Bermuda-based reinsurance-linked investment manager which was formerly Juniperus Capital has announced that Transatlantic Holdings, Inc. (TransRe) has become a strategic partner in Pillar.
4. AIG reveal outsized hurricane Sandy loss estimate of $2 billion pre-tax
   American International Group, Inc., AIG for short, announced their first estimate of the losses they will suffer from hurricane Sandy claims and so far it’s one of the biggest.
5. More Sandy loss estimates announced, including Chubb and Hartford
   A number of new estimates for losses caused by hurricane Sandy have been published by insurers and reinsurers. We’re only really following estimates from those with cat bonds or where they involve the top insurers in the region and so offer a rough approximation tool for estimating where the industry loss from this event.
6. Baillie Gifford takes 10% of Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund
   Demonstrating that reinsurance and catastrophe risk is currently an attractive addition to their broad portfolios, Baillie Gifford have taken 10% of the shares from the initial offering made last week by Bermuda reinsurer Montpelier Re’s newly launched Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund.
7. Zurich returns to catastrophe bond market with Lakeside Re III Ltd.
   Zurich is returning to the catastrophe bond market with the third deal in the Lakeside cat bond series. Lakeside Re III Ltd. see’s Zurich looking to replace and also expand the cover that their last cat bond Lakeside Re II, which matures at the end of 2012, provided.
8. 2012 see’s catastrophe bond market return to growth: Swiss Re
   At a recent media event, reinsurer Swiss Re said that 2012 saw the cat bond market achieve outright growth for the first time since 2007 according to their numbers.
9. Opinions differ on insurance and reinsurance rate trajectory in 2013
   As we approach the ever important January reinsurance renewal period discussion tends to turn to which way rates are likely to go, up or down.
10. Leadenhall grows assets under management to over $850m, see’s further growth
    London based insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked investment manager Leadenhall Capital Partners continues to experience growth in its assets under management thanks to inflows of capital from both new and old investors. The investment manager now has over $850m under management and hopes to grow that further by early 2013.

This is by no means all of our articles from the last week, just the most popular among our readers. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update.

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