Best of Artemis, week ending 10th March 2013

The primary issuance catastrophe bond market came to life last week with two new transactions launching in Tar Heel Re Ltd. and Merna Re IV Ltd. both of which encouragingly come from repeat sponsors. As always, you can read every market news story and article on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter updates 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 10th March 2013:

1. Allianz Risk Transfer and Nephila Capital cement relationship
   Nephila Capital, the largest investment manager in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance sector, and Allianz Risk Transfer (ART), the specialist alternative risk transfer business division within the Allianz Group, are to continue their mutually beneficial working relationship.
2. More details emerge on Swiss Re’s contingent capital bond issuance
   An article containing further details on Swiss Re’s contingent convertible bond issuance which is designed to protect the reinsurer against a specified decline in its capitalisation.
3. Tar Heel Re Ltd. cat bond coming to market for North Carolina wind pools
   This newly marketed cat bond transaction, issued by Tar Heel Re Ltd., is designed to provide the North Carolina wind pools, the North Carolina Joint Underwriters Assn. (NCJUA) and the North Carolina Insurance Underwriters Assn. (NCIUA), with a source of hurricane reinsurance protection.
4. Insurance-linked securities (ILS) set to grow its share of reinsurance capacity
   A new report published by Conning & Company looks at the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and concludes that as the market for risk transfer through alternative instruments such as ILS, catastrophe bonds, industry loss warranties (ILWs), sidecars and collateralized reinsurance becomes more mainstream the reinsurer business model itself is changing.
5. Organisations join forces to promote ILS in Bermuda, conference planned for November
   A number of organisations based in, or with interests in, Bermuda have joined forces to promote the continued growth of Bermuda as a centre of excellence for the convergence of the reinsurance and capital markets under the banner of insurance-linked securities (ILS).
6. Florida Senate bill aims to create capital markets risk transfer facility
   A bill will be heard today by the Florida Senate Banking and Insurance Committee which proposes a capital markets risk transfer facility which would pool risks from the states primary insurers and issue catastrophe bonds or other insurance-linked security (ILS) structures to transfer the risks to the capital markets. We followed this up with a second article after this bill passed its first hurdle in the legislature.
7. Catastrophe bond price returns jump at end of February
   The index tracking the price return of the outstanding catastrophe bond market has risen again in the last fortnight and at its fastest rate so far in 2013.
8. SCOR in VIF (Value of In Force) life reinsurance transaction worth EUR1 billion
   SCOR Global Life Reinsurance Ireland plc, an Irish subsidiary of French reinsurer SCOR Global Life SE, has entered into a life reinsurance transaction with a leading Spanish life insurance company, BBVA Seguros.
9. Life insurance markets continue to use alternative risk financing and ILS
   The life insurance side of the alternative risk financing, transfer and insurance-linked securities market is alive and well with reasonable deal flow in 2012 and a positive outlook to 2013, according to a recent paper on the subject published by actuarial focused firm Milliman Inc.
10. Combine Re cat bond notes upgraded after aggregate loss total annual reset
    Ratings agency Moody’s has upgraded the $50m of Class B catastrophe bond notes issued by Combine Re Ltd. in March 2012 after the deals annual reset.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during 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.

Please take a few minutes to respond to our simple, anonymous poll by telling us what volume of catastrophe bonds you think will be issued in 2013?

If you’re looking for details on catastrophe bond and ILS transactions our Deal Directory has more than 270 listed.

Get listed in our MarketView directory of professionals.