Best of Artemis, week ending 11th March 2018

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 11th March 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.

Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 11th March 2018:

1. AXA confirms XL acquisition, cites diversification & access to alt capital
   French insurance, investment and retirement solutions giant AXA has announced this morning that it will acquire Bermudian insurance and reinsurance specialist XL Group in a $15.3 billion deal, confirming the rumours that emerged over the last weekend.

2. FEMA planning mid-year NFIP reinsurance placement, exploring ILS options
   The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is planning for a potential mid-year 2018 reinsurance placement for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and is actively exploring ILS options, as it continues to commit to expanding the reinsurance program it began in 2017.

3. XL’s reinsurance & ILS operations can help to optimise AXA: CEO, Buberl
   French insurance giant AXA now has access to new capital solutions to help it to optimise its business, with the reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) operations and access to the capital markets that come with its acquisition of XL Group offering a new lever for efficiency, according to CEO Thomas Buberl.

4. Allstate sponsoring $400m Sanders Re 2018-1 multi-peril cat bond
   U.S. primary insurance company Allstate is returning for its latest catastrophe bond transaction, a $400 million Sanders Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) U.S. multi-peril deal with certain innovative features that show the insurer continues to expand its protection from the cat bond market.

5. Alternative capital & reinsurers to be increasingly interdependent: Moody’s
   Alternative reinsurance capital and traditional reinsurers are set to become increasingly interdependent, as the two forms of capacity identify synergies and better ways to work together, while reinsurers get more adept at matching risks with the most appropriate form of capital, according to Moody’s.

6. Pool Re investigates use of UK ILS structure for terror retrocession
   The UK’s government-backed mutual terrorism reinsurance facility Pool Re is actively exploring the issuance of an insurance-linked securities (ILS), or at least some collateralized reinsurance, using the recently set up UK ILS regulatory regime, as the mutual looks to expand its sources of terror retrocession to the capital markets.

7. Alpha run-off shows a risk of private debt investing for ILS funds
   Danish registered insurance company Alpha Insurance A/S (Alpha) has been placed into solvent liquidation and told to stop underwriting, placing its portfolio into run-off, with the circumstances highlighting what could have been a risk for a €20 million private insurance debt transaction between it and investment manager Twelve Capital.

8. First probabilistic cyber risk model launched by RMS
   Catastrophe risk modelling specialist RMS has launched the first probabilistic cyber risk model, a product it believes will help insurance and reinsurance entities allocate capital to cyber risks more robustly and could be a step forward in the tools available for ILS fund managers looking seriously at cyber risk.

9. Essent nears $360m Radnor Re 2018-1 mortgage ILS issuance
   According to Artemis’ sources, mortgage insurance firm Essent Guaranty is nearing completion of a first mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction, as it seeks capital markets support for its mortgage insurance portfolio, in a deal said to be likely to secure it $360.75 million of collateralized reinsurance capacity.

10. ILS funds return 0.56% in January 2018, helped by cat bond prices
    Secondary market catastrophe bond price recovery helped the average return of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investment funds was 0.56% for January 2018, the highest January performance for a number of years, according to the ILS Advisers Index.

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 22 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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