Best of Artemis, week ending 22nd September 2013

Here are the top ten articles as viewed by our readers week ending 22nd September 2013. As always, you can read every market news story and article here on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter updates and for your convenience here are the ten most popular news articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 22nd September 2013:

1. Next $100 billion of alternative capital will transform reinsurance: Aon Benfield
   One of the points of discussion at the recent Monte Carlo reinsurance Rendezvous event was just how much capital might we see flow into the insurance and reinsurance market as insurance-linked securities and other fully collateralized instruments or vehicles from alternative and third-party investor sources.
2. Catastrophe bonds among top performing assets since Lehman bankruptcy
   An interesting fact in the post-Lehman world is that catastrophe bonds are among the best performing assets since the investment bank collapsed. In fact cat bond asset class performance, as measured by the Swiss Re Global Cat Bond Index total return, is the fifth best performing of a group of global financial assets over the last five years.
3. JLT acquires Towers Watson’s reinsurance brokerage, creates JLT Towers Re
   Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc (JLT) will be the firm to acquire the Towers Watson reinsurance brokerage business for a cash consideration of $250m.
4. UK City regulator monitoring alternative reinsurance capital: Times
   According to a report in the Times newspaper, the UK’s Prudential Regulatory Authority, a City regulator tasked with regulation and supervision of financial services including insurance, is monitoring the influx of alternative capital into the reinsurance market.
5. Alternative capital may squeeze out equity capital in reinsurance: Willis Re
   As alternative capital, sourced from institutional and other third-party investors, continues to flow into the reinsurance market at pace thoughts at the Monte Carlo Rendezvous event turn to how this will change the structural landscape for reinsurers. One possible end result could be a displacement of traditional equity reinsurance capital, according to broker Willis Re.
6. Property catastrophe reinsurance price drop filters through in Florida
   Last week we wrote that commercial property policy owners in Louisiana were to begin to feel the benefits of cheaper property catastrophe reinsurance as Louisiana Citizens promised to pass on some of its reinsurance savings. Now a major Florida homeowners insurer is planning to do the same.
7. Share repurchases, start of a change in reinsurer capital structure?
   One of the issues traditional reinsurance firms are currently wrestling with, in this well-capitalised reinsurance marketplace, is what to do with excess capital when they cannot find enough attractive opportunities to deploy underwriting capacity at a reasonable rate of return.
8. Credit Suisse moves Sandy side-pockets back to main portfolio
   Insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked investments manager Credit Suisse has now fully resolved the potential exposure its CS Iris Low Volatility Plus Fund Limited had to last years hurricane, or superstorm, Sandy event and has moved side-pocketed investments back into the main fund portfolio.
9. Reinsurers that partner with alternative capital will still feel competition
   Partnering with alternative capital, by establishing asset management units, is not enough alone to protect property catastrophe focused reinsurance firms from the competitive effects of third-party reinsurance capital, insurance-linked securities and the capital markets.
10. Big reinsurers: Demand, diverse business to fend off alternative capital
    Large global reinsurers expect flat reinsurance renewals and continued growth, despite sources of alternative capital and other market developments potentially denting their share, through their diverse business mix and a continuing expansion of the demand for reinsurance around the world.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update.

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