Best of Artemis, week ending 30th August 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 30th August 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 30th August 2015:

1. Reinsurance rate declines decelerate, but pressure remains: Fitch
   The global reinsurance market shows signs that the pressure on pricing due to soft market conditions is slowing, as rate declines decelerated at the mid-year renewals, but reinsurers, despite remaining profitable, are still under pressure, according to Fitch.

2. Alternative reinsurance capital can narrow protection gap: Swiss Re
   According to an interview with global reinsurer Swiss Re’s CEO, alternative reinsurance capital is not something to be feared for the company, rather it is an essential source of capacity to help provide insurance and reinsurance for the world’s uninsured risks.

3. Storm surge risk across U.S. coastline on the rise: RMS
   New analysis by catastrophe risk modelling and management firm RMS, reveals that rising sea levels signal a potential rise in economic and insured losses from hurricane-driven storm surge across the U.S. coastline.

4. Leadenhall passes $2bn, as synergies with Amlin continue to grow
   Specialist insurance and reinsurance linked investment manager Leadenhall Capital Partners LLP has reached a new milestone, passing the $2 billion of assets mark to reach $2.0077 billion, while at the same time seeing the synergies with parent Amlin grow.

5. Reinsurance M&A no panacea, but momentum to continue: S&P
   Merger and acquisition activity among global reinsurance firms is expected to continue through the rest of 2015 and into 2016, with only the strongest expected to have the best future prospects, according to rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

6. Reinsurer net investment yields down 30% in four years: S&P
   Alongside the growth of ILS, alternative capital, the catastrophe bond and other capital market backed reinsurance capacity, the other main threat to the traditional reinsurance business model in recent years has been the steady decline in investment returns.

7. Berkshire Hathaway copycats will pressure reinsurance pricing: S&P
   Warren Buffett had previously bemoaned the fact that reinsurance had become a “fashionable asset class”. Now, his own business model is being blamed for creating further pressure on reinsurance prices, as new entrants look to operate with a reduced cost-of-capital.

8. Banque Heritage, Coriolis Capital & Pictet team up on cat bond fund
   Swiss private banking group Banque Heritage, which manages over CHF 5.7 billion for its private and institutional client base, is launching a catastrophe bond fund strategy in partnership with UK-based ILS specialist investment manager Coriolis Capital and the Pictet private bank group.

9. Tianjin explosion costs to hit reinsurers, amount uncertain: Rating agencies
   There is an expectation that some of the claims from the recent explosion at chemical storage facilities in Tianjin, China, will be passed onto reinsurance companies. Rating agencies expect losses from the blasts will hit reinsurers, but stress that the amount is uncertain at this time.

10. Deloitte on the strategic risk from ILS – “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”
    While the insurance and reinsurance market find’s itself increasingly awash with capacity from all sources, the disruptive effect of the growing insurance-linked securities (ILS) and third-party reinsurance capital is seen as a key risk to re/insurers that should not be ignored.

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 21 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’ Q2 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Keeping up with demand

We’ve now published our Q2 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the second-quarter of 2015, looking at the $3.162 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q2 2015.

Download your copy here.