Archive for May, 2008

Every so often I’ll try to post up some links of interest at the weekend. These will usually end up being archived in one of the categories in the Resource Library as well. The first today is a very interesting article from the website AllAboutAlpha.com which discusses the possible causal relationship between the weather and […]

A panel of experts from Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. who met yesterday to discuss their views on property insurance availability, claims management, and reinsurance in advance of the 2008 hurricane season. Kevin Stokes, Leader of Guy Carpenter’s Global Property Specialty Practice as well as its Florida Operating Committee commented on insurers continuing to access […]

Hannover Re have stepped into the alternative market again by sponsoring a 1 year retrocessional sidecar Globe Re. The deal comprises $100m of debt securities and $33m of equity. Moody’s have announced the ratings given to the security tranches as Baa3 to the $45m tranche A, Ba2 to the $40m tranche B and B2 to […]

There’s a great article on Bloomberg (available here) discussing catastrophe bonds both from investors and insurers points of view. The article talks about the great returns investors have been experiencing in recent times with the lower incidence of major catastrophes and also the increased interest since other investments (such as sub-prime) are currently not so […]

USAA have just become the largest issuer of catastrophe bonds ever by completing their 12th deal in as many years. Residential Re 2008has just closed to cover USAA for windstorm, earthquake and other peril risks. Since 1997 USAA has issued nearly $3b worth of natural catastrophe bonds, the largest by volume issued. Details of this […]

As the World Bank acts to mitigate the current global crisis over food supplies, Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, has written an article for the Financial Times which lays out a ten point plan and a $1.2b fast track funding facility to help. The article details the action that needs to be taken […]

Secquaero Advisors Ltd. has licensed AIR Worldwide’s CATRADER modelling software to help them effectively assess the risks of investments in insurance linked securities. Dirk Lohmann, Managing Partner at Secquaero said “CATRADER will be incorporated into our overall risk management framework and help us in assessing the impact of individual catastrophe-related financial investments, as well as […]

Guy Carpenter have released a press release and report on Florida property-catastrophe prices at renewal time today. In this they say it’s expected that pricing will decline by about 15 percent based on a industry weighted average of June 1 renewals. The main factors for this drop are a competitive reinsurance market and a lack […]

Benfield Group have today announced an investment of $50 million cash into Juniperus Insurance Opportunity Fund, managed by Juniperus Capital Ltd. Benfield, which holds a significant shareholding in Juniperus Capital, has also committed to provide up to $2 million in working capital to Juniperus Capital. Other investors in the fund include Transatlantic Re. Juniperus Capital […]

O’Reilly Money:Tech was a conference which took place in February this year in New York. It was all about the web and financial services and how new technologies and ‘web 2.0’ is changing the way financial companies make use of data and network technology. Why is this of interest? Well below is a video of […]