Archive for August, 2008

At a time when the UK on the brink of an economic recession and facing some of the worst economic conditions in history news stories such as this mornings reports on retail sales in July can only help to perpetuate the gloom. July’s retail sales were down 0.9% on last year with the current climate […]

Weather risk management has been in the press in the last couple of days thanks to two high profile articles on Weatherbill. Weatherbill has been credited with bringing weather risk management and weather derivatives based products to the masses mainly through the clever use of technology and the internet. This isn’t surprising when you realise […]

Could Mississippi be looking to issue a catastrophe bond to help generate more funds to allow the state wind pool to purchase more reinsurance which would in turn help encourage insurers to pass on cheaper rates to homeowners? According to the Sun Herald, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said as much during a recent interview. […]

Colorado State Universities Department of Atmospheric Science has released an August update to their Atlantic hurricane season forecast. The have upped their prediction for the number of hurricanes to nine (previously they had predicted eight). With the early start we’ve had to the season that’s not surprising. The extra hurricane has been added to their […]

Storm Exchange have just announced the release of their Early Autumn 2008 Weather Risk Outlook (view the full press release here). It’s full of useful forecasts and commentary as usual but one piece stood out to me. They are forecasting an early start to Autumn this year and say that this is good news for […]

Reinsurance Magazine has just announced the results of their annual ‘power list’ of the ‘movers and shakers’ of the re/insurance industry. Not surprising to see that a lot of the companies involved are players in the alternative risk transfer or weather trading markets. Here’s the list including last years rankings in brackets: 1 (5&6) Warren […]

As expected Tropical Storm Edouard, the 5th named Atlantic storm of the season, has strengthened while making it’s way towards the Texas coast. Currently sustained winds are up around the 60mph mark with the potential to increase further before it makes landfall. There have been reports from some elevated oil rigs south of the Louisiana […]

Platinum Underwriters Bermuda Ltd. have completed a new catastrophe bond deal utilising a Cayman Islands SPV, Topiary Capital Ltd. The three year deal of $200m of notes provides Platinum Underwriters with second and subsequent event coverage against U.S. hurricane & earthquake, European windstorm and Japanese earthquakes. Full details of this second-event deal are available in […]

Here’s an interesting article for Monday morning reading from the Telegraph. The Dept of Homeland Security in the U.S. has asked scientists to draw up plans on how hurricanes can be weakened before they make landfall. Scientists believe they can weaken the intensity of storms or even move their course through a range of methods […]

It looks like Texas could be in for another soaking as the fifth tropical storm of the season has formed in the northern Gulf of Mexico and is bearing down on the coast. Edouard is currently heading for the coast and expected to make landfall tomorrow (Tuesday) just in Texas so some impact from rain […]