Insurance Linked Investments

Banque Bonhôte & Cie, a Swiss private bank, investment firm and wealth manager, has announced the launch of a new environmental, social and governance (ESG) focused fund strategy that will incorporate catastrophe bonds as one of its allocations.

When it comes to designing a reinsurance sidecar structure for a life insurer, ensuring alignment is strong across all parties involved is critical, while trade-offs between a sidecar strategy and simply trading with traditional reinsurers must also be assessed, according to RGA (Reinsurance Group of America).

Asset manager Schroders Capital has added Jason Kezelman and Loren Sageser to its Private Debt and Credit Alternatives (PDCA) business, which was launched in October 2023 with Stephan Ruoff and Michelle Russell-Dowe as Co-Heads.

The arrival of the world’s first cloud outage catastrophe bond was viewed very positively, and provides investors with a new avenue into the cyber insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, according to Henning Ludolphs, Managing Director Retrocession and Capital Markets at Hannover Re.

The Ambassador mutual catastrophe bond fund strategy has continued to grow its assets under management in recent months, adding $63.3 million since we last reported on it, to reach $191 million in net assets under management.

The giant more than $9 billion portfolio of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investments managed by PGGM, the Dutch pension investment manager that allocates the largest amount to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market on behalf of end-client the Dutch pension PFZW, delivered a record 18.9% return in 2023.

The City National Rochdale Select Strategies Fund, a US mutual insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund focused on investments into industry-loss warranties (ILW’s) and industry-index trigger catastrophe bonds, delivered its strongest annual performance in the last year, with an almost 15.6% return to its investors.

Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (HSCM), the reinsurance, insurtech, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and transportation focused investment manager, has raised more than $175 million from investment firm StepStone Group and existing investors for the launch of HS Mohawk Fund I LP, its new life insurance-focused continuation fund.

White Mountains CEO Manning Rountree recently explained that the insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds managed by Elementum Advisors delivered 15-20% returns “across the complex” in 2023, a year when his company generated strong returns from its investments into insurance and reinsurance.

The catastrophe bond market continues on its positive trajectory in 2024, with robust demand on both sides of the trade. But with spreads and yields having become more “normalised” in recent months, cat bonds are now much more attractive to potential sponsors, Florian Steiger, CEO of Icosa Investments has said.