Archive for March, 2009

Further evidence of the risks to cash flow faced by small retailers and the need to protect themselves against the vagaries of the weather emerged today in the form of a report from the British Retail Consortium on February sales. They’re blaming the snowfall in the UK in early February for a drop in retail […]

After all the troubles of the second half of 2008, Lehman Brothers collapse, cat bond downgrades and financial market (initial) meltdown, entities issuing catastrophe bonds seem to have taken heed of investor and rating agency worries. Recent cat bond deals in the first quarter of 2009 have all shown a willingness to address the issues […]

Nelson Re Ltd, a Cayman Islands based special purpose vehicle set up to issue catastrophe bonds by Glacier Reinsurance AG, issued a news release. The release states that Glacier Re have informed Nelson Re Ltd that Glacier has incurred approximately $100m worth of claims relating to hurricane Ike. Glacier Re are evaluating the extent to […]

The Ajax Re Ltd catastrophe bond from Aspen Insurance is looking like it is going to default in the coming days due to it’s inability to pay an upcoming interest payment. Ajax Re is one of the bonds which used Lehman Brothers as a total-return swap counterparty and has since been watched closely after Lehman […]

The maturity date of the Avalon Re catastrophe bond from Oil Casualty Insurance Ltd has been extended extended again according to Standard & Poor’s. The original terms of the deal allowed for it to be extended by a period of three months up to eight consecutive times from the original maturity date depending on the […]

A report in Reinsurance Magazine covers a new hire at Aegis London who the story says is being brought in to help launch contingency activities in the London market insurer. The story states that Aegis will soon be offering a range of contingency risk products such as event cancellation, prize indemnity and adverse weather cover. […]

Not strictly on topic for Artemis, but worthy of a mention today, is the news that part of the new bailout deal for AIG (American International Group) will involve a life insurance securitization. This is the first time we’ve heard of securitization actually being an ends to the means of getting more bailout funding from […]

Universal Sompo General Insurance, the Indian subsidiary of Sompo Japan, have announced a move to launch weather insurance micro-finance products to the Indian agriculture market. Universal Sompo is a joint venture between Indian bank and investment companies and the huge Japanese insurer. They plan to leverage their massive branch and agent network (4,000 odd) to […]