Best of Artemis, week ending 12th March 2017

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 12th March 2017, 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.

Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 12th March 2017:

1. Nuclear liability risks ILS deal transacted on a direct insurance basis
   Artemis understands from sources that a ground breaking insurance-linked security (ILS) transaction has been completed featuring nuclear plant liability risks that were transferred direct to an investor in a private cat bond-like format.

2. Warren Buffett cautions against underwriting at any cost
   Warren Buffett doled out some more of his sage advice in the annual Berkshire Hathaway letter to shareholders this year, offering something for the reinsurance industry to ponder at this competitive time.

3. Hong Kong targets ILS as important driver of reinsurance growth
   The Hong Kong government’s Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) has said in a report that it sees insurance-linked securities (ILS) as an important driver of future growth for the Hong Kong reinsurance market.

4. Bermuda reinsurance market profitability nears cost-of-capital: Fitch
   The Bermuda reinsurance market has seen its margins drop again, as prices and investment yields remain pressured with profitability now approaching cost-of-capital, according to Fitch Ratings.

5. Allstate returns with $300m Sanders Re 2017-1 multi-peril cat bond
   U.S. primary insurance company Allstate is back with a new Sanders Re Ltd. (Series 2017-1) catastrophe bond issue, a $300 million U.S. multi-peril transaction, the insurers first cat bond since its attempted 7-year deal failed to be issued in 2015.

6. FEMA to build on “cornerstone” NFIP flood reinsurance placement
   The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will seek to build on its “cornerstone” flood reinsurance placement in order to better protect the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), while shifting more of its risk to the private sector.

7. Citizens seeks early call for Everglades Re II 2015 cat bond
   Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation wants to call (or redeem) its $300 million Everglades Re II Ltd. (Series 2015-1) catastrophe bond transaction early in order to take advantage of market conditions with any new issue in 2017.

8. ILS funds start year with 0.36% average return in January 2017
   The average return across a group of 34 insurance-linked securities (ILS), pure catastrophe bond and reinsurance-linked investment funds was 0.36% in January 2017, which is a significant uplift on the previous years 0.21%.

9. Re/insurance to pay $1bn+ severe weather losses in February: Aon
   Insurance and reinsurance markets face over $1 billion of losses due to severe weather around the globe in February 2017, according to the latest monthly update from Aon Benfield’s risk modelling unit Impact Forecasting.

10. Hannover Re generates “attractive margins” from ILS & collateralised
    Global reinsurance firm Hannover Re continued to generate revenues from its activities in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and collateralised reinsurance market, as its premium volume from that business remained relatively stable in 2016.

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 27 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.

Get listed in our MarketView directory of professionals.

View the current breakdown of the market in our range of charts, allowing you to analyse the cat bond market.

Artemis’ Q4 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Market reaches new heights

We’ve now published our Q4 2016 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the fourth-quarter of 2016, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of transactions completed during Q4 2016.

Q4 saw $2.13 billion of risk capital issued from six transactions, exceeding the ten-year average for the quarter by approximately $337 million. Strong investor and sponsor appetite throughout 2016 helped the market end the year at a new record size, of $26.82 billion.

Download your copy here.