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We’re starting to hear rumblings from a number of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond investors that the high volume of cat bonds brought to market this year is beginning to have an impact on ILS funds and investors ability to diversify their portfolios. The speed with which new deals have appeared and the appetite […]

Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities are viewed as an asset class which can offer exceptional market-beating returns and which are largely uncorrelated to the broader capital markets. They’re also viewed as something that investors should generally be prepared to commit capital to for a reasonable length of time in order to achieve the returns that […]

The recently published report on Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) by independent publisher Clear Path Analysis contains a roundtable interview which involves two representatives of pension funds who don’t currently invest in catastrophe bonds or insurance-linked securities and asks them what they think of the asset class. Their comments suggest that there is still a need […]

The insurance-linked securities investor landscape is becoming more diverse both geographically and in terms of type of investor, according to data shared by Swiss Re at their recent ILS media event. The main source of investment inflow into ILS and catastrophe bond assets is still from dedicated funds, who now make up 70% of the […]

Another week, another article in the press discussing the growing interest in catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities amongst the investment community. eFinancialNews.com (a Dow Jones franchise) carries an article (titled ‘Investors see opportunity in devastation risk’) today discussing the merits of cat bonds and other ILS and the growing interest in them from investors who […]

Investment manager GAM has announced the launch of a UCITS version of their catastrophe bond fund today. GAM Star Cat Bond is a UCITS-compliant fund which aims to deliver stable and attractive returns from a diversified basket of underlying catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities. They are seeking to provide attractive returns which are not correlated […]

Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities seem to be in the news at least once a week with respect to their use as a diversifier for investment portfolios. A fortnight ago we wrote about the Australian investment advisor Ibbotson who suggested that insurance-linked securities were an ‘investment asset to withstand recession‘. Now Australian investment research house […]

The options available to investors seeking to access non-correlated returns by investing in insurance and reinsurance linked asset classes which are correlated to catastrophe events and not to the wider financial markets are growing. As different types of reinsurance vehicles emerge and new ways to structure and trigger insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds are found, […]

Much of our coverage on the investment side of the insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond market discusses the opportunities the asset class presents to institutional investors seeking non-correlated assets offering diversification to their portfolio. It’s rare that we write about diversification within an insurance-linked portfolio, so some insight gleaned from investment manager Clariden Leu’s recent […]

Yet again insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds are being held up as great investment assets in the current uncertain global economic climate and once again Australia is where the discussion is coming from. In their latest Ibbotson Insight article titled ‘Capital Preservation for Australian Investors‘, their Head of Alternative Investments Michael Coop says investors should […]