Best of Artemis, week ending 29th May 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 29th May 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.

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Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 29th May 2016:

1. World Bank launches pandemic risk market, backed by cat bonds
   The World Bank has launched the “first-ever insurance market for pandemic risk”, the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF), which is designed to rapidly disburse capital in the event of deadly pandemics and will be backed by pandemic catastrophe bonds and reinsurance.

2. Kumamoto, Japan quake insurance payouts rise 46% to $1.65bn
   Insurance payouts from both Japanese domestic and foreign non-life companies for damage to dwellings after the Kumamoto region of Kyushu, Japan earthquakes in April have risen by 46% in a week to $1.65 billion.

3. Lloyd’s, Guy Carpenter, Met Office to establish weather index for Asia
   Lloyd’s of London, the UK Met Office, and reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter are working together to establish the concept of an agriculture weather index that can be used for insurance in Southeast Asia, with a report on the initiative set to be launched in London later this year.

4. Hudson Structured secures $250m anchor investment from Blackstone
   Hudson Structured Capital Management, the insurance, reinsurance and transportation linked investment firm set up by ex-Goldman Sachs structured products leader Michael Millette, has closed on and secured its $250m anchor investment from Blackstone, Artemis has learned.

5. Operational Re, Credit Suisse’s op-risk cat bond, settles at CHF220m
   Investment bank Credit Suisse’s Operational Re Ltd. transaction, which uses a catastrophe bond structure to secure insurance via the capital markets for operational risk exposures, has now been successfully settled at  a size of CHF 220m (around $223m).

6. Distribution shift puts MGAs at forefront of risk value chain: Braga, BMS
   Excess reinsurance capacity from both traditional and third-party sources has enabled MGA’s to drive a shift in the distribution channel. With firms increasingly realising the benefits of getting closer to the primary source of risk, according to Romulo Braga, CEO of BMS Capital Advisory.

7. Florida Citizens shifts reinsurance focus to per-occurrence in 2016
   Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation’s risk transfer and reinsurance buying strategy continues to evolve, with the insurer electing to renegotiate multi-year aggregate reinsurance and shift the protection to per-occurrence coverage for the 2016 hurricane season.

8. Could Lloyd’s names capital start to look a lot like ILS capital?
   Lloyd’s ‘names’ are perhaps the original incarnation of third-party capital in the insurance and reinsurance market. Largely high net worth individuals, who backed syndicates and often took on unlimited liability, the ‘names’ model is set for change and could begin to look at lot like ILS capital.

9. Bermudian reinsurer ROE’s down nearly a third, pressures remain: S&P
   Bermuda domiciled reinsurance companies saw average annualised return on equity (ROE) drop almost a third in the first-quarter of 2016 to 8.7%, underlining continued market headwinds despite an increase in gross written premiums (GWP), according to S&P.

10. Physical damage element of cyber re/insurance needs clarity
    The growing threat of cyber terror events across the world has seen a concerted effort from governments and risk transfer counterparties to provide solutions. Among the challenges is the added complexity of physical damage from cyber terror events, according to industry experts.

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 25 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’ Q1 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Another record first-quarter

We’ve now published our Q1 2016 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the first-quarter of 2016, looking at the record $2.215 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q1 2016. The report also includes a review of global property catastrophe reinsurance pricing trends and commentary on dedicated reinsurance sector capital from co-editor GC Securities.

Download your copy here.