Archive for February, 2011

Tragically, Christchurch in New Zealand has suffered a second severe earthquake which struck the city at 23:51 GMT. The epicentre of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake was just 10km south of the city of Christchurch and at a shallow depth of 5km. This means the shaking experienced was more severe than in the 7.1 magnitude quake […]

The government of Queensland, Australia has bowed to pressure from sources within the government and local ministers and agreed to at least look into the cost of purchasing disaster reinsurance to cover catastrophes such as the  flooding and cyclones which have affected the region this year.

Swiss Re has announced the closure of its latest catastrophe bond issuance under the Successor X Ltd. SPV. This latest transaction, Successor X Ltd. Series 2011-2 has secured $305m of catastrophe protection for North Atlantic hurricane and California earthquakes for Swiss Re.

Securis Investments, the specialist investment fund with a focus on insurance-linked securities, is reported (by the Financial Times) to be about to launch a public fundraising initiative as a listed closed-end version of the Securis 1 Master Fund to try to expand its capital and to attract new investors. It is said to be seeking […]

Chubb are returning to the catastrophe bond market for their fourth transaction in the East Lane Re series of deals. They last issued a cat bond in February 2009 under East Lane Re III to protect their subsidiary Federal Insurance against Florida hurricane risks. This latest deal is a multi-peril transaction which should be attractive […]

Hartford Fire Insurance Co’s recently closed catastrophe bond issued by their Cayman based SPV Foundation re III Ltd. has received its rating from Standard & Poor’s. The $135m of catastrophe bond notes provide Hartford and certain subsidiaries with four years of cover against U.S. hurricanes on a per-occurrence basis.

The city of Shanghai in China has been slowly establishing itself as an international financial center and wants to reach that goal by 2020. The insurance industry lags behind banking and securities though and so plans are underway to change that. One of the initiatives being worked on is the planning of an insurance exchange […]

Today, Agro National Inc. (Agro) announced a strategic relationship with eWeatherRisk.com to offer weather risk transfer solutions to Agro’s agricultural clients through Agro’s agent network. The relationship allows qualified producers to enter into weather contracts via eWeatherRisk.com and supplement their crop insurance coverage with weather risk derivative products.

Indian broadcaster Multi Screen Media who are responsible for televising the Indian Premier League cricket competition has taken out a weather insurance policy to cover against the chance of bad weather disrupting or cancelling league matches.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and reinsurer Swiss Re are working on a catastrophe insurance facility for Caribbean country the Dominican Republic. The project to establish this cover has been ongoing for a year or more as the IDB worked with various third parties to establish the best way to secure natural disaster cover for […]