Best of Artemis, week ending 29th September 2013

Here are the top ten articles as viewed by our readers week ending 29th September 2013. As always, you can read every market news story and article here 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 29th September 2013:

1. Swiss Re seeking dual-trigger contingent capital cover with new transaction
   Reinsurer Swiss Re is looking to secure a new source of contingent capital protection for its solvency and balance sheet with the launch and marketing of a new dual-trigger contingent capital securitized bond issuance.
2. Calypso Capital II, European windstorm catastrophe bond, launched for AXA
   A new catastrophe bond has been launched on behalf of French insurance group AXA, the third in the insurers series of cat bonds named Calypso. Calypso Capital II Ltd. will seek to secure the insurer €200m of protection against losses from windstorm events in Europe.
3. Credit Suisse continued to move assets out of catastrophe bonds in July
   The insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked investment unit of investment manager Credit Suisse continued to move its capital out of catastrophe bonds and into reinsurance-linked assets with better underlying returns during the month of July.
4. Canadian regulator on lookout for yield hunting reinsurance investors
   A few days after it was reported that the UK’s leading City regulator is monitoring the influx of alternative capital into the reinsurance market, the top Canadian financial regulator has stated the importance of ensuring that third-party investors are not purely accessing reinsurance in a search for yield.
5. Recent hurricanes in Mexico show potential for broader cat bond triggers
   When Mexico was hit by two hurricanes recently, the resulting damage was extensive but largely caused by rainfall, flooding and landslides rather than hurricane force winds, which meant that the countries catastrophe bond, MultiCat Mexico Ltd. (Series 2012-1), was not troubled.
6. CEA upped traditional reinsurance, reduced collateralized, at renewals
   With the recent focus across the reinsurance market on alternative capital, insurance-linked securities and collateralized reinsurance, it’s interesting to discover that the California Earthquake Authority (CEA) has slightly reduced its use of fully-collateralized protection at recent renewals.
7. Risk selection and pricing to be key in reinsurance market transition
   As the global reinsurance market transitions from one dominated by companies backed by equity shareholders to a new capital mix, with alternative capital sourced from third-parties a growing component of global reinsurance capacity, diligence in the selection of risks and pricing will be key.
8. Strong ILS fund performance in August, but differences in strategy show
   The month of August saw insurance-linked security (ILS) funds deliver strong performance, with their best average monthly return so far this year thanks to below average hurricane activity and seasonal spread tightening, according to the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index.
9. Neil Strong moves to Securis to head up business development
   Securis Investment Partners, the London-based insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked investments manager, has hired Neil Strong, previously from Execution Re, as Head of Business Development, its latest hire as it seeks to build out a best in class ILS manager.
10. Mutual insurers to benefit from third-party capital at renewals: Willis Re
    Third-party and alternative capital’s interest in the reinsurance market, which has helped to put pressure on reinsurance prices resulting in favourable buying conditions, is set to benefit mutual insurers at the upcoming January renewals, according to reinsurance broker Willis Re.

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.

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