Best of Artemis, week ending 26th April 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 26th April 2015, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 26th April 2015:

1. Local factors could intensify hurricanes in 2015, despite low forecasts
   More forecasters have joined the call for another below-average Atlantic hurricane and tropical storm season in 2015, but some warn that localised factors near to the U.S. coastline are conducive to storm formation and intensification.

2. Reinsurance returns challenged if capital inflows continue: A.M. Best
   Returns for major reinsurance companies around the world will be increasingly challenging to achieve if capital continues to enter the market at recent high rates, reserve releases soften and pricing continues to decline through 2015, according to A.M. Best.

3. inea structures Lottoland collateralized lottery risk deal, first ILS in Gibraltar
   inea GmbH, a German firm that structures and offer investment opportunities including insurance-linked securities (ILS), has completed a new lottery winning risk collateralized reinsurance transaction, which has become the first ILS deal to be domiciled in Gibraltar.

4. Reinsurer pull-back on property catastrophe re/insurance continues
   The first-quarter 2015 results season began this week and there are already signs that the general pull-back on property catastrophe reinsurance underwriting continues, as companies reduce their exposures to the most under-pressure rates.

5. Stone Ridge Asset Management adds three hires from leading banks
   New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management, a provider of mutual fund investments across a variety of beta focused alternative risk exposures including reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS), has hired three senior execs from leading banks recently.

6. ABR Re to follow market terms, be a capacity player: ACE’s Greenberg
   Evan Greenberg, CEO of global insurance and reinsurance firm ACE Limited, said that the new joint-venture backed, captive-style reinsurer ABR Re will purely be a capacity player, following the reinsurance market’s terms.

7. Benu Capital grows to €285m, as higher risk mortality layer appeals
   AXA Global Life’s excess mortality catastrophe bond transaction Benu Capital Limited has upsized, as was expected, to a total size of €285m, as investors showed a greater desire to allocate capital to the higher risk and return layer of mortality risk.

8. Everglades Re II cat bond price range expanded on investor feedback
   According to sources the price guidance for Florida’s Citizens latest Everglades Re II Ltd. (Series 2015-1) catastrophe bond has been expanded, providing a wider range of possible coupon yield after investors pushed back on the tight launch pricing range.

9. In a low-yield world investors should look to re/insurance: Twelve Capital
   In the current low-yield environment, institutional investors will increasingly be forced to take on more risk and turn to less familiar asset classes, something which should heighten the attraction to insurance-linked investments and ILS, according to Twelve Capital.

10. Guy Carpenter practice to focus on catastrophe risk for governments
    A new practice team at reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter will focus exclusively on the catastrophe risk transfer needs of government agencies and entities. The Public Sector Specialty Practice will provide solutions aiming to relieve the cost of catastrophes for these entities.

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 31 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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We’ve now published our Q1 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

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