Best of Artemis, week ending 7th February 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 7th February 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 7th February 2016:

1. Big reinsurers: Some reinsurance lines no longer meeting cost-of-capital
   Some reinsurance lines are no longer meeting cost-of-capital for the world’s largest reinsurers, which sees the firms often writing business at levels which are technically unprofitable as they subsidise some risks as diversifiers.

2. Credit Suisse offers CHF630m Operational Re Ltd. operational risk ILS
   Credit Suisse is making progress in its mission to leverage the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and the structure of a catastrophe bond as a way to secure risk capital to back its operational risk insurance needs, with this unusual deal now marketing as Operational Re Ltd., we understand.

3. NHC puts Patricia landfall at 932mb, suggests 50% MultiCat loss at least
   The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) has finally delivered its final tropical cyclone report for hurricane Patricia, putting the minimum central pressure of the storm at 932mb at landfall on the Mexican coast, suggesting the MultiCat Mexico Ltd. (Series 2012-1) Class C catastrophe bond notes face at least a 50% loss.

4. Tianjin blasts insured loss could creep towards $6bn: IUMI
   The insurance and reinsurance industry loss from the Tianjin, China port explosions last summer could creed up to somewhere between $5 billion to as much as $6 billion, according to reports, threatening a growing loss exposure for some ILS funds.

5. Flood Re finalises £2.1bn retro reinsurance using ~40 counterparties
   Flood Re, the UK’s government-backed reinsurance scheme designed to make flood insurance more accessible to property owners, has successfully added another roughly £800m of cover to the £1.29 billion of retrocession it secured in 2015, to complete its £2.1 billion ($3.025bn) reinsurance program.

6. RMS seeks to unlock cyber re/insurance capacity with accumulation tool
   Risk modelling firm RMS has released a new cyber risk accumulation management tool and reporting framework as it seeks to encourage insurance, reinsurance and the ILS markets to become more comfortable putting out larger limits to cover cyber risk exposures.

7. Reasons to be cheerful, as cedents look to reinsurance capital support
   After a number of renewals where the world’s insurance companies have been carefully managing their retentions, increasing them in many cases, there are signs and reasons to be more cheerful as reinsurance capital is once again rising up the agenda.

8. Room for ILS to increase its share of global securitisation issuance
   Between 2010 and 2014 insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuance made up just 1.17% of the reported $2.87 trillion of issuance seen in the global securitisation market, highlighting room for significant growth as ILS could provide investors with a real alternative in this market.

9. Maturing of the ILS asset class sees ‘novelty premium’ fading: Swiss Re
   The maturity of the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market in recent times, underlined by growing investor understanding and sponsor sophistication, has seen the “novelty premium” diminish, according to reinsurance giant Swiss Re.

10. ILS to expand, new issuance spreads likely to improve: Twelve Capital
    The catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) sector performed well for investors during 2015, and analysis from Twelve Capital predicts further innovation and expansion during the coming months, while spreads are also expected to improve.

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 30 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’ Q4 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Outright market growth continues

We’ve now published our Q4 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the fourth-quarter of 2015, looking at the $1.525 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q4 2015. The report also includes a review of the full year 2015 issuance and commentary from co-editor GC Securities.

Download your copy here.