Best of Artemis, week ending 24th May 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 24th May 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 24th May 2015:

1. Nephila Capital added as sub-advisor to second Blackstone fund
   Nephila Capital, the largest fund manager in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance-linked investment space, has been selected as a sub-advisor for a second multi-asset class mutual fund operated by Blackstone Alternative Asset Management.

2. Property catastrophe reinsurance rates are not so bad: Argo Group CEO
   While property catastrophe reinsurance pricing is generally accepted to be the line of business that has suffered the steepest decline in rates, the current prices are still attractive and in fact better than insurance on a risk adjusted basis.

3. The prospects for catastrophe bonds in China: Willis
   What are the prospects for the use of catastrophe bonds as a tool for insurance and reinsurance risk transfer in China? Broker Willis Group provides some thoughts on what could be an ideal tool for transferring the nation’s massive natural disaster and weather risk.

4. Alleghany said to mull TransRe sale. Could see Pillar ILS stake sold too
   Reports suggest that insurance and reinsurance holding company Alleghany Corporation is mulling the sale of reinsurer TransRe (or Transatlantic Holdings Inc.), which could include the sale of its stake in ILS asset manager Pillar Capital.

5. Lancashire double-down and focus in challenging reinsurance market
   There’s a lot of talk about innovation, new business models, alternative capital, start-ups and external investors in the insurance and reinsurance market right now, but there is another way to navigate the challenging market environment.

6. Compass Re II cat bond’s parametric trigger explained by Fitch
   Rating agency Fitch has provided some more detail and background information on U.S. primary insurer AIG’s latest catastrophe bond, the $200m Compass Re II Ltd. (Series 2015-1) deal which launched earlier this week.

7. ILS, cat bonds & reinsurance, an asset class to offset a crisis
   There’s a new strategic asset class in town, the Crisis Risk Offset (CRO), a select group of assets that could provide returns and liquidity during an economic growth crisis, and one of the assets considered able to offset a crisis for investors is ILS and reinsurance.

8. Barclays Capital turns negative on European insurance & reinsurance
   Analysts from Barclays Capital have turned their outlook on the European insurance and reinsurance sector to negative, from neutral, citing the significant and growing headwinds that companies in the market face.

9. Further reinsurance price declines, weakening of T&C’s expected: Fitch
   As the reinsurance market rapidly approaches the key June and July renewals, Fitch Ratings says that it expects a continued decline in prices and further weakening of terms and conditions, as the market battles to put excess capital to work.

10. Risk bundling driven by traditional reinsurance market: Twelve Capital
    The recent discussion of risk bundling has been wrongly aimed at the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, according to Zurich headquartered ILS manager Twelve Capital, which points out that self-regulation is actually very strong in ILS.

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 27 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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Artemis’ Q1 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – The biggest first quarter ever

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

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the first-quarter of 2015, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q1 2015.

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