Best of Artemis, week ending 24th April 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 24th April 2016, 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 April 2016:

1. Japan, Ecuador quakes to impact Q2 reinsurance earnings
   The recent earthquakes in Japan and Ecuador may heighten the risk of catastrophes in the minds of insurance and reinsurance firms, and will likely result in a hit to re/insurer second quarter 2016 earnings, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley.

2. Houston, Texas flooding likened to $3.5bn tropical storm Allison
   The ongoing severe flooding in Houston, Texas and the surrounding area, is being likened for severity to 2001’s tropical storm Allison, a storm which was predominantly a flooding event but resulted in more than $7 billion of economic losses and an insured loss estimated at $3.5 billion.

3. Mt. Logan Re hits $1 billion of capital, $950m third-party sourced
   Global reinsurance firm Everest Re has reached a new milestone for its collateralized reinsurance sidecar type vehicle, Mt. Logan Re Ltd., reaching $1 billion of capital for the first time, $950 million of which is sourced from third-party investors.

4. CEA’s California quake risk the source of $85m Resilience Re cat bond
   The new $85m private catastrophe bond, or cat bond lite, transaction Resilience Re Ltd. (Series 1642B), which was issued using the platform owned by broker Willis Towers Watson, does feature California earthquake risk sourced from the California Earthquake Authority (CEA).

5. USAA returns with $150m Residential Reinsurance 2016 cat bond
   U.S. military mutual insurer USAA is returning to the capital markets for its latest, and 27th securitization of insurance risk, with a $150m, three tranche, Residential Reinsurance 2016 Limited (Series 2016-1) catastrophe bond.

6. Kusche joins TigerRisk from Swiss Re to lead global ILS structuring
   TigerRisk Partners LLC, the catastrophe reinsurance broker and risk/capital management advisor, has added insurance-linked securities (ILS) structuring expert Philipp Kusche to its ranks, as Partner and Global Head of ILS and Capital Solutions.

7. Japan earthquake insured losses up to $2.9 billion – AIR
   The first estimate of losses to the insurance and reinsurance industry from the recent magnitude 7.0 earthquake in the Kumamoto region of Kyushu, Japan, has been released by AIR Worldwide, estimating insured losses of between $1.7 billion to $2.9 billion (excluding business interruption).

8. “Not all reinsurers will survive” today’s market environment: A.M. Best
   Despite many reinsurers adjusting their strategies in order to mitigate the impacts of the softening market landscape, ratings agency A.M. Best has warned that the depth of testing market trends will prove too much for some reinsurance companies.

9. Luxembourg applying UCITS 20/35 diversification rule to cat bond funds
   An issue has been bubbling away in the background of the catastrophe bond and ILS fund market since late 2015 which has the potential to impact the way managers of UCITS catastrophe bond funds deal with diversification.

10. TWIA to tweak reinsurance for 2016, may add second-event protection
    The Actuarial Committee of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), the residual market or last-resort property insurer for Texas, is set to seek approval to purchase slightly less first-event reinsurance protection in 2016, but may add a second-event cover.

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’ Q1 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Another record first-quarter

We’ve now published our Q1 2016 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 2016, looking at the record $2.215 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q1 2016. The report also includes a review of global property catastrophe reinsurance pricing trends and commentary on dedicated reinsurance sector capital from co-editor GC Securities.

Download your copy here.