Best of Artemis, week ending 13th May 2018

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 13th May 2018, 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 or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

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Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 13th May 2018:

1. Buffett & Munger discuss reinsurance challenges Berkshire Hathaway faces
   This weekend saw the quarterly results and annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the most interesting exchanges during the question & answer session was Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger discussing over just how tough reinsurance can be these days.

2. Nephila leads reinsurance facility for Boost insurtech platform
   Nephila Capital, the largest ILS investment fund manager of catastrophe and weather insurance-linked assets, is to lead a dedicated reinsurance facility for InsurTech development platform company Boost Insurance, with capacity also provided by Markel and RenRe.

3. Markel CATCo boosts reserves for 2017 catastrophes by 19.5% of NAV
   Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd. has strengthened loss reserves considerably for its listed retrocessional reinsurance fund, the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund, bolstering the reserves for 2017 catastrophe losses by another 19.5% of net asset value.

4. As SoftBank & Swiss Re talks stall, the investor could look at ILS options
   As the negotiations between reinsurance giant Swiss Re and technology and telecoms investor SoftBank are reported to have stalled, with the pair said unable to agree on the size of the stake, among other things. Perhaps SoftBank could put its innovation hat on and leverage ILS trends as a way to do something different.

5. Blue Capital London-listed ILS fund may be run-off
   The Board of the London-listed insurance and reinsurance linked investment strategy, the Blue Capital Alternative Income Fund, is set to make a recommendation that the fund is put into an orderly run-off, after shareholders representing 39% of the ILS fund voted not to continue the company.

6. Re/insurance sector faces $1.5bn+ April severe thunderstorm bill: Aon
   The insurance and reinsurance industry is facing a total industry loss of more than US $1.5 billion following the impact of a number of outbreaks of severe convective weather, including thunderstorms, tornadoes and large hail, as the lions share of a $2.3 billion economic loss should be covered by insurance.

7. As cyber risk quantification matures, expect more ILS capital involvement: PwC
   Before insurance-linked securities (ILS) move wholesale into the cyber risk underwriting arena the technologies and risk models used to quantify cyber exposures will need to mature further, but once that happens we should expect the provision of cyber reinsurance capital to come from diversified sources, according to PwC.

8. Munich Re significantly expands P&C reinsurance book in Q1 and April
   Global reinsurance giant Munich Re is the latest to say it has taken advantage of market conditions during the first few months of this year, expanding its property & casualty reinsurance book significantly during the first-quarter and at the April renewal season.

9. Hiscox Re & ILS grows book in “hard fought” market, expects flat renewals
   The Hiscox Re & ILS business, which is made up of the reinsurance underwriting and insurance-linked securities (ILS) management at global specialist re/insurer Hiscox Group, underwrote significantly more premiums during the first-quarter of the year, but noted that it had to fight hard for it.

10. Florida Citizens approved for $1.42bn reinsurance buy in 2018
    The board of governors of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has approved the purchase of a $1.42 billion reinsurance program for 2018, which is a 7% increase on the total limit of risk transfer secured last year and with more of the coverage from the capital markets via Everglades Re cat bonds.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 25 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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