Best of Artemis, week ending 31st May 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 31st 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 31st May 2015:

1. Reinsurance prices to stabilise, but at structurally lower levels: Goldman Sachs
   Analysts from Goldman Sachs believe that reinsurance pricing could stabilise by the end of 2016, but warn that this could be at a structurally lower level from where they may not rise much again, even after future losses.

2. EXOR welcomes PartnerRe shareholder vote, Sandell questions Board
   Italian holding company EXOR said that it welcomes the chance for PartnerRe shareholders to vote on the reinsurance firms future, while activist investor Sandell Asset Management has questioned PartnerRe’s board’s commitment to a fair process.

3. PFIC rules could affect catastrophe bonds, sidecars, ILS funds & cells
   In current form, the U.S. Treasury Internal Revenue Service’s proposed rules for Passive Foreign Investment Companies (PFICs) could impact a number of alternative risk, reinsurance and ILS structures and activities.

4. LMG sets up London cat bond & ILS group, a chance to think bigger
   The London Market Group (LMG), an organisation established to look at London’s role in insurance and reinsurance, has now established a task force to look at progressing initiatives to make London a more attractive hub for catastrophe bonds and ILS.

5. PCS launches catastrophe industry loss service for Turkey
   Property Claim Services (PCS) is expanding internationally and has today announced the launch of PCS Turkey, to provide catastrophe loss aggregation services and industry loss estimates for events that occur throughout the country.

6. 70% chance of below normal hurricane season in 2015: NOAA
   The U.S. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center released its official May forecast for the 2015 Atlantic tropical storm & hurricane season today, predicting a 70% chance of a below normal season and citing the potential for El Niño to suppress activity this year.

7. U.S. severe thunderstorm losses reached $3.1bn by mid-May: Aon Benfield
   Insurance industry losses from U.S. severe thunderstorms, so including hail and tornado events, are estimated to have reached $3.1 billion by mid-May and are expected to spike sharply higher, given the widespread impacts of extreme weather in recent days.

8. Some ILS funds suffer NAV impact from Australian storms
   A number of ILS or reinsurance linked investment funds have seen small impacts to their net asset value (NAV) in April, due to the severe east-coast low pressure system and hailstorm that impacted the New South Wales and Sydney area in April.

9. Kiskadee ILS funds grow to 300+ positions, add 70 at April renewal
   The Kiskadee ILS funds, operated by Hiscox Group’s third-party reinsurance capital and insurance-linked securities unit Kiskadee Investment Managers, took advantage of diversification opportunities at the April renewals to grow its portfolios to over 300 positions.

10. Florida catastrophe reinsurance protection superior to pre-Andrew: Demotech
    Floridian insurers are better protected with catastrophe reinsurance than in the early 1990’s pre-hurricane Andrew, thanks to the use of both vertical and sideways protection, according to financial analysis firm Demotech Inc.

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 22 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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