Best of Artemis, week ending 14th September 2014

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 14th September 2014, on catastrophe bonds, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics, from the last seven days on Artemis. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

Before our normal rundown of the top ten stories of last week, please check our Monte Carlo Rendez-vous page . Please make sure you don’t miss any of the articles from Saturday and Sunday which we’ve listed below, above our usual weekly top ten.

• Peter Nakada leaving RMS to move to Stone Ridge Asset Management

• Competing over the same cake could have disastrous results: Munich Re

• Low-cost of catastrophe reinsurance capital an opportunity: Aon Benfield

• A smarter, more client-responsive reinsurance market: Willis Re

• PERILS-based limits at risk drop 14% to $3.7bn on slow ILW market

• Differentiate or consolidation ahead for reinsurance industry: PwC

• There will always be a soft(er) reinsurance market

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 14th September 2014:

1. Convergence capital triggers behavioural change among reinsurers
   Rating agency A.M. Best questions the relevance of the reinsurance underwriting cycle in its latest special report on the sector, asking whether the cycle has grown distorted thanks partly to the growth of ILS and alternative reinsurance capital.

2. Moody’s highlights ILS return pressure, negative reinsurance outlook
   Rating agency Moody’s Investor Service highlighted that pressure is not just hurting reinsurers, in the current soft reinsurance market environment, but that some insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers returns also feel the pain.

3. Alternative capital, ILS take 20% of catastrophe reinsurance market: Aon Benfield
   Alternative reinsurance capital, made up of insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds, collateralized reinsurance, sidecars and ILW’s etc, has captured 20% of the property catastrophe reinsurance market, according to Aon Benfield.

4. Alternative reinsurance capital up 18% to $59B in first-half 2014: Aon Benfield
   The amount of alternative capital in the reinsurance marketplace increased by 18% to reach $59 billion in the first-half of 2014, according to Aon Benfield, accounting for just over 10% of total global reinsurance capital.

5. Innovate & adapt to navigate a reconfigured reinsurance industry: S&P
   Innovation and adaptation are two key traits of global reinsurance firms that will succeed in remaining relevant as they navigate what will eventually result in a reconfiguration of the reinsurance industry, according to Standard & Poor’s.

6. U.S. said to consider closing hedge fund reinsurer “tax loophole”
   Bloomberg has reported that once again the U.S. Treasury department is actively considering targeting the hedge fund backed reinsurance sector, as it seeks to close what it considers a “tax loophole”.

7. Excessweather to offer index & parametric weather & catastrophe covers
   A new UK-flagged coverholder, Excessweather, launched this week offering insurance and reinsurance products which pay out based on weather or catastrophe indices and parameters, aiming to capitalise on interest in climate and weather risk protection.

8. Capital market alternatives a permanent fixture in reinsurance: Fitch
   The capital markets, alternative risk transfer and alternative reinsurance capital is a permanent fixture of the global reinsurance market, having gained acceptance from both cedents and reinsurers, according to Fitch Ratings.

9. Collateralized retrocession reduces reinsurers systemic risk: S&P
   Based on an analysis of extreme loss scenarios, Standard & Poor’s says that it does not consider reinsurers’ catastrophe risk exposure to be a source of systemic risk and that collateralized retrocession helps to reduce interconnectedness in the sector.

10. There will always be a soft(er) reinsurance market
    Once again Artemis finds itself in Monte Carlo at the annual reinsurance Rendezvous event. In its 58th year the event brings executives from all over the world and the currently soft reinsurance market is a key topic in 2014.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 26 new articles published in the last week. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.

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Q2 2014 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – The Biggest Quarter, The Biggest Catastrophe Bond

We’ve now published our Q2 2014 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the record second-quarter of 2014, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of the transactions completed during Q1 2014.
Download your copy here.