Best of Artemis, week ending 28th August 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 28th August 2016, 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 28th August 2016:

1. M6.2 earthquake hits Umbria, Italy – some ILS assets exposed
   Last week Italy was hit by a deadly earthquake, with more than 250 reported dead. The Azzurro Re I cat bond is thought to have escaped any loss, but with an estimated $11 billion of economic losses the toll for insurers and reinsurers could be at least the EUR200m estimated by Fitch.

2. How Blockchain Could Really Change the Insurance Industry
   Is blockchain a solution in search of a problem? For the insurance industry, there’s been plenty of chatter about distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, but take-up has been thin.

3. All eyes in Florida & Gulf Coast on Invest 99L (tropical storm Hermine)
   All eyes in Florida and the Gulf Coast states will be on Invest 99L, a strong tropical low that is currently tracking west-north-west between Cuba and the Bahamas towards Florida, could develop into named tropical storm Hermine and which is forecast to pass into the Gulf of Mexico.

4. Ongoing claims issues in NZ show quake isn’t always a short-tail risk
   The Insurance Council of New Zealand said that private insurance and reinsurance firms have now paid out more than $18 billion to settle commercial and residential claims from the Canterbury earthquakes, but ever since the quakes the magnitude of the loss has been filled with uncertainty.

5. Reinsurance capital could pay for some of Louisiana flooding
   Despite the fact that U.S. flood events are largely paid for by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and primary insurance, where flood is a covered peril, the recent severe floods in Louisiana could see some of the burden covered by reinsurance capital.

6. Barney Schauble, Nephila Capital on weather risks as ILS assets
   In the latest in our series of interviews with figures from the risk transfer and insurance-linked securities (ILS) markets, Artemis spoke with Barney Schauble, Managing Partner at specialist catastrophe and weather risk asset manager Nephila Capital.

7. Soft market aggregation build up a risk for reinsurers: Fitch
   There is a risk that some reinsurance companies may have picked up “unintended aggregations” as they fight to retain business and compete their way through the soft market cycle, which presents a risk of certain firms facing larger than expected losses, according to Fitch Ratings.

8. Cyber the fastest growing peril, will require reinsurance & ILS capital
   Cyber risk is reportedly the fastest growing insured peril across the global property/casualty (P/C) insurance space, with the market forecast to expand to $20 billion by the year 2020. With the potential exposure so vast there’s a clear need for reinsurance capital, suggesting opportunities for ILS markets.

9. Capital inflows to hurt post-event profit of London re/insurers: A.M. Best
   London market insurance and reinsurance players have historically benefited from playing the re/insurance cycle, but in today’s highly competitive marketplace, post-event profits for the London market are under threat from sidelined capital, says A.M. Best.

10. Reinsurers “well-equipped” to weather the storm, for now at least: S&P
    International ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has highlighted the strong enterprise risk management (ERM) practices of global reinsurers as key to success in the current market. But as market headwinds persist and margins continue to thin, the harder it will be for firms to weather the storm.

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 26 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 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A quiet quarter fails to keep up with investor demand

We’ve now published our Q2 2016 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 2016, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of transactions completed during Q2 2016.

Q2 2016 issuance failed to hit $2 billion, with just $1.624 billion of new risk capital issued from 14 transactions. This is the first time since 2011 that Q2 issuance has failed to reach $2 billion.

Download your copy here.