$250m Citrus Re 2016 Florida/Hawaii wind cat bond out for Heritage

Florida headquartered Heritage is back with a new catastrophe bond transaction, Citrus Re Ltd. (Series 2016-1), seeking $250m of reinsurance from the capital markets for its Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance and Zephyr Insurance Company subsidiaries.

It’s the first time Heritage has included coverage for a subsidiary, the company entered into an agreement to buy Zephyr (a Hawaii based property catastrophe focused insurance company) in September. The acquisition has yet to complete and we understand that if it failed to then Zephyr would no longer be a cedent for this deal, with the coverage just applying to Heritage P&C.

This will be Heritage’s fourth catastrophe bond under the Citrus Re vehicle (details of each can be found in our Deal Directory). This transaction sees the insurer once again looking for a flexible source of fully-collateralized reinsurance protection from the capital markets in a layer of its program alongside its FHCF participation.

We’re told that this cat bond deal will see Citrus Re Ltd. issuing two tranches of Series 2016-1 notes, a (currently) $150m Class D-50 tranche and a $100m Class E-50 tranche, to collateralize an underlying reinsurance agreement with the ceding insurers.

Protection from both tranches will be on a per-occurrence basis and the notes feature an indemnity trigger. The protection will run across three U.S. hurricane seasons, we understand, from June 2016 to a maturity date in February 2019, so in total around two years and eight months.

Coverage is initially for losses suffered by either of Heritage P&C or Zephyr from named storms affecting Florida and Hawaii. However, as with other Citrus Re cat bonds from Heritage the covered area can be updated to include other hurricane exposed U.S. states, reflecting Heritage’s desire to expand and grow into other states of the U.S., something it is already doing.

The $150m Class D-50 tranche of notes attach at $360m of losses and coverage exhausts at $960m, however we understand that these notes inure to a layer of private reinsurance that provides $400m of cover above $360m of losses. That effectively makes these notes cover a percentage of a $600m layer attaching at $760m of losses, we believe.

The riskier $100m Class E-50 tranche cover a percentage of losses from $360m to $760m in the Heritage reinsurance program, so sit beneath the Class D-50 notes.

Class D-50 has an attachment probability of 4.19%, an expected loss of 3.01% and are being marketed to ILS investors with coupon guidance of 7% to 7.5%, we understand. Class E-50 has an attachment probability of 8.11%, an expected loss of 5.75% and are being marketed with price guidance of 10% to 10.5%.

So no surprise to see a higher multiple for the lower risk notes (2.4 times the EL at the base case and mid-point of pricing), with the higher risk/return tranche offering a multiple of 1.8 times the expected loss at the mid-point of pricing.

Willis Capital Markets & Advisory are bringing this deal to market as sole structuring agent and bookrunner, while AIR Worldwide is providing risk modelling services.

We’ll keep you updated as Heritage’s latest catastrophe bond comes to market.

Citrus Re Ltd. (Series 2016-1) is expected to complete this month and you can read all about it and every other cat bond in the Artemis Deal Directory.