Best of Artemis, week ending 28th July 2013

It’s been another busy week of news on Artemis. Here are the ten most viewed stories but there are many more to catch up on. 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 28th July 2013:

1. Tight spread environment for catastrophe bonds to continue: Swiss Re
   In its latest look at the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market reinsurer Swiss Re suggests that the tight spread environment seen on cat bond issues through 2013 so far is set to continue.
2. ILS triggered reinsurance rate decline to colour outlook for Lloyd’s firms
   The outlook for insurers and reinsurers engaged in the Lloyd’s insurance market in London looks potentially gloomy, according to an analysts report from Christopher Hitchings of Keefe, Bruyette and Woods.
3. No impact, so far, to ILS funds from recent earthquakes
   Strong and damaging earthquakes have taken place around the world in recent days, with quakes in New Zealand and China most likely to result in losses to insurance or reinsurance firms. So far, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers who have reported on these events, suggest that there will be no impact to ILS funds.
4. Inflows, reduced pricing help catastrophe bond market grow in Q2: Munich Re
   Net capital inflows from capital market investors into the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities space, combined with reduced pricing of new catastrophe bond and ILS issues, helped the cat bond market to grow in the second-quarter of 2013, according to the latest ILS market update from reinsurer Munich Re.
5. Leadenhall Capital: 91.5% of $1.4 billion ILS assets are pension fund sourced
   London based insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked investment manager Leadenhall Capital Partners currently attributes a huge 91.5% of its ILS assets as commitments sourced from pension funds, according to data shared by Luca Albertini, CEO of Leadenhall Capital Partners at an event.
6. Towers Watson brings $60m Sullivan Re cat bond to market for new sponsor
   Towers Watson Capital Markets (TWCM), the capital markets and private catastrophe bond specialist arm of professional services firm, has bought another new sponsor to the catastrophe bond market with the completion of a $60m cat bond, Sullivan Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1).
7. Tropical storm Dorian, fourth of season, forms in Atlantic
   The fourth named tropical storm of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season has formed today in the eastern Atlantic ocean, not far to the south and west of Cape Verde.
8. ILS and cat bond market has questions to answer to maintain growth: WCMA
   The latest insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond market report from Willis Capital Markets & Advisory, the investment banking and advisory arm of broker Willis, raises some very good questions that the ILS market may want to put some thought into if it is to continue its recent rapid pace of growth.
9. Beazley see third-party reinsurance capital affecting growth of short-tail lines
   Specialist insurance and reinsurance firm Beazley has cited the strong influx of non-traditional reinsurance capital into global reinsurance markets as a potentially negative factor, which could slow growth for certain lines of business it participates in over the months to come.
10. Insured catastrophe losses for first-half 2013 reach $20 billion: Aon Benfield
    According to data released by Impact Forecasting, the catastrophe model development center of excellence at reinsurance broker Aon Benfield, the first-half of 2013 saw natural catastrophes cause $85 billion of economic losses, with around 24% insured leaving an insurance industry catastrophe loss of approximately $20 billion.

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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