hurricane Maria 2017

Catastrophe risk modelling firm AIR Worldwide has almost halved its estimate for insurance and reinsurance industry losses from hurricane Maria, dropping the range from the initial $40 billion and $85 billion it had announced in September, to now estimate somewhere between $27 billion and $48 billion of industry losses.

Reinsurance capital has played a significant role in helping primary insurance giant and specialist reinsurance player Chubb to manage the impact of recent major catastrophe events, with the company managing to claim back around $1.1 billion from its reinsurance partners reducing its near $3 billion gross cat loss down to $1.9 billion.

Despite the significant catastrophe losses facing the reinsurance industry, French reinsurer SCOR has reported a profit for the first none months of 2017, as support from its retrocession providers helped the firm to better manage its losses.

Reinsurance giant Munich Re has revealed the scale of the impact of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as other losses including the Mexico earthquakes this morning, saying it expects its third-quarter major losses will run to approximately EUR 3.2 billion ($3.8bn).

Lloyd’s of London has lowered its estimate of the insurance and reinsurance market’s loss from hurricanes Harvey and Irma to $3.9 billion, down from the $4.5 billion it had estimated at the end of September, and has added an estimate of $900 million for losses from hurricane Maria.

Reinsurance and retrocessional reinsurance investment manager Markel CATCo Investment Management has implemented loss reserves for hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria amounting to 20% of net asset value for its listed retrocession strategy, the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd.

AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. said it has successfully limited its exposure to third-quarter natural catastrophe events through the use of reinsurance and its new quota share arrangement that it entered into as of August 1st 2017.

One of reinsurance firm Everest Re’s in-force catastrophe bond tranches, a $200m Kilimanjaro Re Ltd. (Series 2014-1) Class B tranche of notes, has been downgraded and had its ratings placed on watch due to the aggregation of industry losses from recent hurricane events.

Primary insurance giant and specialist reinsurance player Chubb has revealed an update to its estimate of third-quarter 2017 catastrophe losses, adding $220 million for hurricane Maria, $25 million for the Mexico earthquakes and $107 million from other losses during the quarter to the $1.6 billion it already announced for hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Catastrophe risk modelling specialists Karen Clark & Company (KCC) have put the insurance and reinsurance industry loss from hurricane Maria’s Caribbean and Puerto Rico impacts at $30 billion, which falls at the top-end of RMS’ estimate, but below the low-end of AIR’s.