Archive for March, 2010

Standard & Poor’s have assigned a preliminary rating to State Farms new Merna Re II Ltd. catastrophe bond transaction. The deal designed to hedge a portion of State Farms earthquake risks has received a ‘BB+’ rating.

The Australian Financial Standard reports that Credit Suisse has won a $100m insurance-linked strategies mandate from Mercer. Credit Suisse will aim to invest in a diversified portfolio of insurance-linked securities and other insurance risk linked investments for Mercer. Mercer wants the strategy to be low volatility with a stable return profile for which ILS are […]

Recent catastrophes such as the Chile earthquake and European windstorm Xynthia are going to cause high losses amongst reinsurers around the globe. Insurers and reinsurers will be reporting large drops in their profitability for this year which comes as a complete contrast to 2009 which saw losses lower than average. This could be good news […]

The capital markets and particularly catastrophe bonds have proved very good ways of absorbing the risks of natural disasters. Similar insurance-linked securities are now successfully transferring life insurance and longevity risks to the capital markets. But at a recent conference insurers highlighted the need and desire to expand the types of risks transferred to include […]

State Farm is planning a new catastrophe bond issue. Merna Re II Ltd. is designed to provide State Farm with protection against some of it’s earthquake risks in the U.S. The deals initial size is said to be $400m but people close to the deal believe it could almost double and actually come to market […]

Here’s an interesting article from the Royal Gazette reporting on a World Insurance Forum panels comments on how climate change could impact the insurance and reinsurance industries. The most interesting comment for me is from Barney Schauble of Nephila Capital who believes that climate change could provide an opportunity for growth in insurance and reinsurance […]

The Insurance Services Office (ISO) has announced that it is to bring Property Claims Services PCS to Canada. The new service named PCS Canada aims to provide insurers, reinsurers, brokers and other stakeholders with Canadian catastrophe information to enable them to better manage their natural and man-made catastrophe risks.

Swiss Re has published its latest Sigma report which looks at the extent of natural catastrophe and man-made disaster losses during 2009. According to the report catastrophes and disasters caused $26B in insured losses last year and the overall cost to society in economic loss was $62B.

Weather patterns around the globe seem to be in flux so far this year. Severe winters in Europe and the U.S., extremely dry weather in parts of Asia, the coldest Siberian winter in many years and now reports of permafrost melt on the steppes. A lot of this is due to the El Nino weather […]

Sources in India have confirmed that exchanges and trading firms are still waiting on the Indian parliament to amend the Forward Contracts Regulation Act in order that new asset classes such as weather futures and index-linked weather contracts can be introduced to markets there. This is seen as essential for India to be seen as […]