Best of Artemis, week ending 6th January 2013

The first week of 2013 is now behind us and there was, as ever at this key juncture for the reinsurance market, a number of important news stories. Start 2013 off the right way by catching up here. As always, you can read every market news story and article on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update 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 6th January 2013:

1. New $400m Compass Re catastrophe bond takes 2012 issuance over $6 billion
   AIG subsidiary National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh finished 2012 off with a last-minute deal (Compass Re Ltd. (Series 2012-1)) bringing an extra $400m of risk into the cat bond market and taking the total issuance for 2012 to a very impressive $6.339 billion.
2. The catastrophe bond and insurance-linked security transactions issued during 2012
   We recorded a very healthy 29 cat bond and ILS deals in our Deal Directory in 2012, which includes a number of private or unrated transactions, totalling a healthy $6.339 billion. This article lists every transaction.
3. Total return of the catastrophe bond market beats 10% in 2012
   The total return of the outstanding catastrophe bond market in 2012 beat the long-term average to come in at an impressive 10.3%. According to Swiss Re the average annual return of their index from 2002 to the end of 2011 was 8.13%.
4. Annuity reinsurance; a new avenue for the convergence market to explore?
   A speculative look at how the convergence and collateralized reinsurance markets could look to annuity reinsurance as a new sector where their risk and return appetites could be satisfied while offering a new investment opportunity to capital sources.
5. Reinsurers managing insurance-linked funds for investors is the future
   The fully-collateralized reinsurance space has been on the up in recent years, but two of the world’s largest brokers see fund management as an area that will increasingly see reinsurers getting involved.
6. Influence of capital markets capacity on reinsurance set to expand strongly
   One factor contributing to the healthy capitalisation of the global reinsurance market is the growing amount of capital market sourced reinsurance capacity which many believe is set to expand its influence strongly.
7. Third-party capital makes a competitive environment for catastrophe bond issuance: Willis Re
   The reinsurance broker said that thanks to inflows of capital and continued demand for catastrophe event risk as an asset class, it believes there is a competitive environment for catastrophe bond issuance right now.
8. Zurich’s Lakeside Re III catastrophe bond upsizes to $270m and completes
   Insurance group Zurich’s latest cat bond transaction Lakeside Re III Ltd. completed in the last week of 2012 and upsized by $45m, from the $225m it started marketing at.
9. RenaissanceRe launches Upsilon Reinsurance II sidecar, deploys $185m of limit
   Bermuda based reinsurer RenaissanceRe has announced the formation and launch of a new Bermuda domiciled special purpose insurer sidecar vehicle called Upsilon Reinsurance II Ltd.
10. No blanket reinsurance rate increases at renewals despite Sandy: Willis Re
    At the key January reinsurance renewals the view from reinsurance broker Willis Re is that there has been a stabilisation of rates on property catastrophe lines of business and no blanket rate increases.

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This is by no means all of our articles from 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.

If you’re looking for details on catastrophe bond and ILS transactions our Deal Directory has more than 260 listed.

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