Best of Artemis, week ending 8th November 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 8th November 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 8th November 2015:

1. Pressure recordings show uncertainty in MultiCat cat bond loss
   Minimum central pressure readings from hurricane Patricia, taken near the landfall location in Mexico by a storm chaser, look likely to sustain the uncertainty over the level of loss faced by catastrophe bond investors. Meanwhile, S&P downgraded the cat bond notes this week, saying it felt a default appears inevitable. Also, it became apparent that investors have been buying the at-risk notes at low prices in case they only lose 50% of principal.

2. Goldman Sachs to push catastrophe bonds for climate resilience
   As part of a new environmental policy at the investment bank, Goldman Sachs will focus on developing new models and use-cases for catastrophe bonds, aiming to help clients mitigate climate risk impacts as well as for financing resilience.

3. Markel invests in CATCo retro fund, reveals purchase price of manager
   Insurance, reinsurance and financial services group Markel Corporation has demonstrated its commitment to one of the funds operated by reinsurance investment and fund manager CATCo by making an allocation to it.

4. Hannover Re reinsures longevity risk for PIC & Philips pension buyout
   German reinsurance firm Hannover Re has entered into a longevity reinsurance transaction with Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) simultaneously with the completion of the largest ever full pension insurance buyout between PIC and the Philips UK Pension Fund.

5. Greater attractiveness to third-party capital an M&A driver: A.M. Best
   Increasing your attractiveness to third-party capital investors has become a key driver for mergers and acquisitions in reinsurance, as access to efficient capital becomes increasingly important for reinsurers, according to A.M. Best.

6. Cat bond funds see best month in 2 years, ILS funds avg 1.03% in Sept
   Pure catastrophe bond investment funds saw their highest single monthly return in two years in September, as the rebound in cat bond prices helped to raise the average ILS fund return across a group of 34 ILS, reinsurance linked and catastrophe bond funds to 1.03%.

7. Tougher to be a reinsurance capital provider than a broker: MMC CEO Glaser
   In the currently challenging, softened and perhaps structurally changed for good global reinsurance market, it is tougher, right now, to be a provider of reinsurance capital and capacity than a broker, according to Marsh & McLennan President and CEO Daniel Glaser.

8. Models, the “skeleton on which you hang your underwriting thinking”: Tom Bolt
   Accurate and adequate risk models are a necessity to the operations of the insurance and reinsurance industry, but they are sometimes viewed as a black box which underlines the need for common sense and underwriting judgement to enable a more holistic view of risks.

9. Hedge fund reinsurer investment returns go positive in October
   Two of the most prominent hedge fund reinsurance firms have seen an improvement in their investment returns in October, after two consecutive months of deeply negative returns due to financial market volatility.

10. Bank of England monitors UK longevity risk going offshore: Bloomberg
    The Bank of England is monitoring the trend of UK pension fund or insurer longevity risk and liabilities going offshore through reinsurance transactions, such as longevity swaps, as non-EU re/insurers can hold less capital against longevity risk, according to a report from Bloomberg.

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 28 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’ Q3 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A market making steady progress

We’ve now published our Q3 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the third-quarter of 2015, looking at the $1.093 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q3 2015.

Download your copy here.