Archive for August, 2010

Alternative Beta Partners, a multi-strategy asset management firm which was spun out of Partners Group, have just issued a press release announcing the launch of its own insurance-linked securities index the ‘AltBeta ILS Index’. They push their index as an alternative to existing indices which they term deficient (they explain that below).

The Swiss Re catastrophe bond indices, which provide us with a measure of the health and investor confidence in the catastrophe bond market, have just completed their sixth rising week in a row. Commentators are attributing this resurgence to the lack of active hurricanes so far this year in the Atlantic ocean and it seems […]

Aon Benfield Securities have released a report which provides an annual review of the insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond market. The report ‘Insurance-Linked Securities – Market Momentum 2010’ offers expert analysis on what Aon call an ‘increasingly important asset class’ and provides an excellent reference for anyone involved in or interested in the market.

The Life & Longevity Markets Association (LLMA) has proposed a standardises framework for designing, building and producing longevity indices. The proposal aims to provide the longevity risk transfer market with a set of standards to facilitate easier longevity risk transfer transactions and increase transparency.

The Mexican insurance association AMIS has been working on a microinsurance pilot in collaboration with a government agency called Pronafim (National Program for Microfinance). So far they have sold in excess of 50,000 microinsurance life policies which is great market penetration for a new type of product.

Sompo Japan has been trialing a weather risk microinsurance product in a region of Thailand since January this year (our article on the launch here). The trial project saw weather index insurance for drought sold in Khon Kaen province in Northeast Thailand. It was the first such microinsurance product made available in Thailand.

A study into catastrophe losses in the Caribbean and their potential to increase due to the changing climate has been released by the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF). The study has been undertaken by the CCRIF, Caribbean Risk Managers and regional partners, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (5Cs), the UN Economic Commission for […]

Catastrophe bond transactions can utilise a range of different types of triggers as points of measure to define whether they have experienced a loss or not. The types of triggers used by cat bond deals have changed over the years the market has existed as some come into favour and others receive less attention. A […]

Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities market is made up of nothing but U.S. hurricane risks. Around 85% of all new cat bond issuance in 2010 has been linked to U.S. wind and we saw a similar amount issued last year. Hurricane risks seem to get the […]

News reaches us this morning that Aon Benfield Securities are launching the Aon Benfield ILS Indices which will provide a quantitative monthly view of insurance-linked securities returns since December 2000.