Archive for July, 2008

The Insurance Times is reporting that from tomorrow (11th July) the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange will be listing IFEX (Insurance Futures Exchange) Florida and U.S. Gulf Coast tropical wind event linked futures. The new first event futures cover insured losses in Florida and the Gulf Coast states Mississipi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas and will feature […]

Jamaica, Antigua, Dominica, Haiti, St Kitts & Nevis, and Turks and Caicos have all taken up the offer from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility to have expanded coverage which should protect them from lower level storms. These six policyholders can now claim on a lower trigger level of a 1 in 15 year storm, […]

Members of Parliament in Bermuda yesterday passed the Insurance Amendment Act 2008. The amends to existing legislation bring in new capital standards for insurers and have also restructured the classification system for Class 3 insurers allowing for a new class of Special Purpose Insurers to be created to be used by the growing insurance-linked securities […]

It’s really interesting to read about the weather risk management approach being taken in India. Advancements in the sector there put developed countries to shame as they put technology to use to enable rural communities to go some way to managing their own risks. The latest strategy being employed involves farmers being sent SMS text […]

Swiss Re has confirmed it is looking to launch a new division tasked with creating solutions to de-risk pension schemes. Initially they will be aiming to work with UK based pension schemes with funds around £500m, see how that goes, and if successful move into Europe and the U.S. Longevity is high on the agenda […]

Munich Re, Munich Re America, and the Insurance Information Institute teamed up to present a webinar that provided the press with an overview of the first half 2008 natural catastrophes yesterday. The upshot is that losses from the first half of this year equaled around $50B with $13B of it insured. This is one of […]

Storm Exchange and the CME Group have clubbed together to commission a new benchmark study on corporate weather risk management practices. The outcome is that a decisive majority of CFO’s and risk managers confirm that their operations are significantly at risk from the weather. 8 out of 10 highlight the fact that climate change and […]

Fitch Ratings have announced a new ratings criteria document for the life insurance reserve financing sector. In these transactions the investors are exposed to the risk that a defined block of life insurance business may not mature as expected due to payments being different from those modelled because of differing mortality rates or lapses in […]

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility has not been triggered by Tropical Strom Arthur’s landfall on the Central American country of Belize at the start of June. Despite tropical storm force winds and heavy rain which caused heavy flooding, estimates of losses from the Belize government were put at approximately $60m. Arthur qualified as an […]

Bertha, the tropical storm, has now become the first Atlantic hurricane of the season. She is currently moving towards the west-northwest at 17mph and has maximum sustained winds of around 75mph. Some strengthening is forecast over the next couple of days as she heads over increasingly warmer waters. It’s still too early to say whether […]