Archive for May, 2008

Two new cat bonds have been issued in the last couple of days. The first is a Florida windstorm bond issued by HomeWise Insurance Which we hope to have more details on soon. The other is a parametric Japanese quake bond issued by insurer Zenkyoren. The placement protects Zenkyoren via their reinsurance contract with Munich […]

TFS Energy today announced its US weather derivatives division completed a Dutch auction for Madison, WI and Cedar Rapids, IA, on behalf of a client who was looking to offset its risk. Offers were solicited for cumulative average temperature calls in Madison, WI and Cedar Rapids, IA, for the June – August 2008 time period. […]

Interesting interview from Fox Business available here featuring Mike Smith of WeatherData Services and Jeff Hamlin of Weatherbill.com discussing the weather’s impact on businesses. You can view the video below: It’s good to see weather risk management receiving some high profile coverage helped enormously by the success of innovative companies such as WeatherData Services and […]

Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather gave an update on his early season atlantic hurricane forecast yesterday. He now expects the season to be near average with 12 to 13 named storms and 4 major hurricanes. The center of the target area wuld be the U.S. southeast coastline although he did say the threat area is further […]

Standard & Poor’s have amended a default table they use to help them rate insurance linked securitizations and catastrophe bonds. 11 cat bonds and six life mortality securitizations have been affected by the change. These default tables are amended occasionally to help S&P apply a rating that better reflects observed corporate defaults. Ratings on 8 […]

Insurance linked securitisation is attracting increasing interest from potential issuers and structurers as more companies begin to ponder transferring their risks to the capital markets, says Fitch Ratings. Companies with Solvency II on their mind are looking to methods such as catastrophe bonds to help them adapt to the new capital requirements and manage their […]

There is some good commentary on the Standard & Poor’s website about their recent insurance linked securities conference which discusses the state of the life insurance securitization market. Highlights of the release below: Will Life Insurance Securitizations Wither Without Bond Wrappers? Issuance of traditional life ILS, where long-term risk is typically packaged and backed up […]

The Senate yesterday rejected an effort to include windstorm insurance in the federal flood insurance program warning that the addition could overwhelm the program. There is still some hope for homeowners as there is a further amendment which is unresolved, this calls for a quasi-public catastrophe bond program to be set up to endeavor to […]

Todays edition of the excellent BestDay Audio features an interview with Brian O’Hearne, head of Americas for Environmental and Commodity Markets at Swiss Re, regarding the weather derivatives market and why it continues to enjoy significant interest amid a global credit crunch. You can listen to the audio MP3 here (compatible player software required).

Good article here by Anthony Hilton from the Evening Standard about the move by Amlin to set up a partnership to invest in traded insurance risk. The fact that Amlin see this as a worthwhile move when they currently do not write catastrophe risk seems like good news for the market. It’s encouraging to see […]