Archive for March, 2009

We’ve posted in the past (here, here and here) about the various attempts and lobbying to try to resolve the Florida property insurance issues and the possibility of quasi-public catastrophe bond schemes being launched to provide much needed capacity and risk financing. Our last post on the subject discussed the potential for it to become […]

The Ajax Re catastrophe bond deal (one of those affected by Lehmans collapse) sponsored by Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. has managed to make it’s latest interest payment in time. The interest payment was due yesterday (Monday) and was paid as expected say Standard & Poor’s. Despite this fact S&P say the Ajax Re cat bond […]

Weatherbill, the online service offering easy to use tools to price and obtain weather risk insurance protection, have broadened their reach with a range of new coverage locations. New locations have been added in the U.S. northwest in areas which have historically been underserved by crop weather insurance. These areas are regions where various speciality […]

Climate Change PLC has announced it’s full year figures for 2008. As the owners of the Insurance Futures Exchange (IFEX) they have numbers to share on how well the hurricane risk trading facility (housed at the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange) has performed in the first full year of windstorm futures trading. They report that the […]

In a report published by Bloomberg today, Hannover Re are quoted as saying they are stepping back from the catastrophe bond market for the moment due to the associated costs with bringing a new transaction to market. Hannover Re board member Ulrich Wallin is quoted as saying that the three recent cat bond deals (post […]

Guy Carpenters www.gccapitalideas.com blog has an excellent post on the portion of the catastrophe bond market known as shelf offerings. Shelf offerings emerged in 2002 and have since been becoming a greater proportion of deals completed each year. Issuing a shelf offering involves structuring a transaction platform which allows for multiple note issuance’s. The benefits […]

In an interview with CNBC news Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, said that his company will sell less catastrophe reinsurance this year and aims to keep cash back to protect his business interests. He said the aim is to keep an absolute minimum of $10b in available capital on hand in case of a […]

We’ve been waiting to see reported figures for the 2008 weather contract volumes traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Unusually, the place we’ve found them is in an article on Medill Reports, a publication from Chicago Northwestern University. The numbers reported don’t look good either. We’d expected to see the trade in weather derivatives, […]

I’ve just had a tip off from a friendly investment manager that Liberty Mutual have increased the size of their catastrophe bond deal Mystic Re II 2009-1 (yes, we now believe it is called II despite earlier confusion) from $200m to $225m. The reason being given is investor demand, which is a great sign for […]

Below is a copy of a press release just received regarding the appointment of the Bank of New York Mellon as a number of key roles related to the Scor Atlas Re V catastrophe bond deal. It’s good to see the transparency being adopted as often these appointments are not broadcast. There is also further […]