Archive for October, 2009

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has issued a press release announcing their intention to widen the scope of snowfall futures and options which can be traded on the exchange. Four new locations will be added for monthly and seasonal snowfall futures and options while new Snowfall Index Binary Options Contracts are to be launched for […]

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) has joined up with the  Caribbean Institute for Meterology and Hydrology (CIMH) and Kinetic Analysis Corporation (Kinanco) to develop and test a parametric excess rainfall insurance product for catastrophic flood coverage in the region.The new rainfall product will be particularly relevant for the agricultural industry. It will also […]

In an article published on Bloomberg news today Allianz spokespersons have called for the catastrophe bond market to become more standardised and affordable. I don’t think they’ll get much argument there from anyone involved in this market. Standardisation would open the door to quicker issuance, more transparency and increase affordability by making it much easier […]

AIR Worldwide Corporation’s domination of the market for providing risk modeling and analytical services to catastrophe bond issuers appears to be growing. Back in April we wrote that they’d been involved in over $10b worth of catastrophe bond deals since the market began and had modeled 70% of the cat bond deals completed in 2008. […]

Here’s some interesting reading for a Monday morning. Pension Corporation has joined the Pension Institute (who asked this question previously) in urging the British government to issue longevity linked bonds to help pension schemes and insurers manage the risks associated with increasing life expectancy of the British population. The fact that the population are living […]

Leadenhall Capital Partners have announced that they are to launch two $50m insurance linked security investment funds and both will be based in Dublin, Ireland. Through the funds Leadenhall are aiming to provide investors with access to returns from the insurance and reinsurance markets through investments in catastrophe bonds, CAT swaps and other insurance-linked investments.

Back in August I wrote about the downgrade of notes in the credit reinsurance securitisation Crystal Credit which was issued by Swiss Re in 2006. At the time things were looking very bad for Crystal Credit and Standard & Poor’s had downgraded the notes which were designed to provide Swiss Re with cat bond type […]

Air India, the Indian national carrier airline, is trying to find an insurance company who will underwrite it’s losses caused by fog. Fog in India is a major issue for airlines during the winter causing many delays and cancellations to flights. They sought this kind of cover last year as well although I’m not sure […]

The World Bank has published an announcement regarding its involvement in the MultiCat Mexico 2009 Ltd. catastrophe bond transaction. Their International Bank for Reconstruction and Development organisation was involved in helping the deal come to market and now it transpires that this could be just the first deal under a new facility called the MultiCat […]

It’s time for our monthly catch up on how cataastrophe bond price and total returns are doing on the Swiss Re published indices. Here’s our commentary from last month for comparison.