Best of Artemis, week ending 12th July 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 12th July 2015, 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 12th July 2015:

1. NZ Earthquake Commission wants cat bond approval for reinsurance
   The New Zealand Earthquake Commission (EQC), a state-backed provider of earthquake insurance coverage, is seeking greater flexibility in its use of reinsurance, including the ability to issue catastrophe bonds as part of its risk transfer.

2. U.S. wind reinsurance prices moderate most at July renewal: Guy Carpenter
   Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter is in agreement with its peers, that at the July 1st renewal price declines were seen to moderate, although it notes that this moderation has been predominantly on U.S. wind exposed programs.

3. Re/insurance can mitigate & protect against “new era of catastrophes”
   The rise in global urbanisation to hazard prone areas, climate change and increased values at risk have sparked a new “era of catastrophes,” signalling an opportunity for the insurance and reinsurance sector to improve the management of extreme risks, according to Professor Howard Kunreuther.

4. El Niño forecast to be stronger, last longer into 2016
   The chances of the current El Niño conditions becoming stronger and also lasting longer into next year have increased, according to the latest update from the U.S. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, who now give an 80% chance it could persist into Spring 2016.

5. Firmer ILS market ahead, as innovation continues apace: Twelve Capital
   A firmer insurance-linked securities (ILS) market is ahead as discipline helps to slow price declines, while at the same time innovation in the ILS and catastrophe bond market continues apace, according to Twelve Capital.

6. PartnerRe and AXIS Capital evaluate improving merger deal
   As expected reinsurance firm PartnerRe and insurer and reinsurer AXIS Capital are now evaluating their options with respect to how they could enhance or improve their amalgamation agreement for the shareholders benefit.

7. ARC adds five new countries, taps ILS capacity for reinsurance renewal
   The African Risk Capacity (ARC) has enlarged its risk pool, adding five new countries to those protected by the parametric insurer, growing the risk pool to $192m of capacity and utilising $70m of global reinsurance cover, which includes some ILS or collateralised protection.

8. Re/insurance M&A could have upside, alt capital a factor: Goldman Sachs
   While the insurance and reinsurance market is engrossed in a search for relevance, scale and diversity of underwriting platform, the resulting M&A activity may present an “upside risk” which could bolster P&C re/insurance shares, despite the clear headwinds, according to Goldman Sachs.

9. New record for cat bond lite issuance as 2015 hits $537m already
   The growing acceptance, understanding and demand for smaller catastrophe bond issues and privately placed transactions during the first-half of 2015 has already broken all previous records, with just over $537 million of privately cat bonds completed year-to-date.

10. Flood Re planning £2.1bn ($3.27bn) reinsurance purchase
    The UK’s new government backed reinsurance scheme, Flood Re, is planning to buy £2.1 billion ($3.27 billion) of retrocessional reinsurance cover, which is likely to include collateralised or ILS markets, adding another welcome source of new demand for capacity.

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 31 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’ Q2 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Keeping up with demand

We’ve now published our Q2 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the second-quarter of 2015, looking at the $3.162 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q2 2015.

Download your copy here.