Best of Artemis, week ending 2nd July 2017

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 2nd July 2017, 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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Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 2nd July 2017:

1. Deja vu, or a new normal of more efficient reinsurance pricing?
   A new report published by rating agency Standard & Poor’s suggests that reinsurance firms may be looking at the state of the market with a sense of deja vu, as they realise they face another year of declining reinsurance rates.

2. Technology will channel new lines of risk to the capital markets
   Further disruption is coming to the insurance and reinsurance industry, with advances in technology set to stimulate a shift to some form of trading and placement of new classes of risk more directly with alternative capital and ILS investors, a shift that could be driven by InsurTech efforts both inside and outside of the ILS space.

3. Florida cat fund (FHCF) renews $1bn reinsurance at reduced cost
   The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) reinsurance renewal has now been completed, with the State Board of Administration (SBA) securing another $1 billion layer of cover, again featuring fully collateralized participation from some ILS fund managers, and with a -4% price reduction year-on-year.

4. World Bank adds $105m of pandemic swaps to $320m of PEF cat bonds
   The World Bank has added $105 million of pandemic risk linked swaps to its now $320 million of pandemic catastrophe bonds, in order to support the majority of the $500 million of backing for the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF).

5. The most costly Q1 since Northridge quake for U.S. P&C sector: ISO / PCI
   The private U.S. property & casualty insurance sector has suffered the most costly first-quarter for catastrophe losses since the 1994 Northridge earthquake this year, with $7.3 billion of catastrophe claims helping to lower its net income for the quarter by 42.2%.

6. Innovative Fortius Re II cat bond launched for AmTrust subsidiaries
   A new catastrophe bond issuance has been launched to the ILS investor community, with a currently $100 million in size Fortius Re II Ltd. (Series 2017-1) transaction that seeks reinsurance against both property and workers compensation losses for subsidiaries of financial services group AmTrust.

7. Spanish olive growers get parametric weather cover with Meteo Protect
   Weather index insurance specialist Meteo Protect has secured a deal that will open up its parametric risk transfer products to the Spanish olive growing community, to help farmers and producers enhance their resilience to weather and climate-related risks.

8. 42% of Florida Citizens renewal is collateralized markets & ILS funds
   A whopping 42% of the limit placed for Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation’s reinsurance renewal was sourced from collateralized markets and insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers, as third-party capital continued to grow its share of the shrinking program.

9. UK’s PRA warns on price discipline, alternative market pressures
   The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority unit of the Bank of England has sent yet another warning to insurance and reinsurance CEO’s on the need to remain disciplined on price, especially while prices continue to soften, and that the alternative market continues to pressure rates, particularly in property catastrophe risks.

10. New Guy Carpenter Asia Pacific retro team to expand ILS in region
    Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter has launched a new unit focused on offering a dedicated retrocession service to its clients in the Asia Pacific region. The GC Asia Pacific Retro unit will also look to provide a capital agnostic approach and hopes to help expand ILS in the region.

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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