Archive for February, 2011

With the Australian government seeking to impose a disaster tax on its population to help pay for the damage caused by the severe floods and cyclone Yasi in Queensland talk has turned to what the government should really be doing to ensure it has financial protection against natural disasters. Now a spokesperson for Swiss Re […]

Bloomberg reports today that Scor the French reinsurer is targeting the longevity swap market by establishing a new team in London focused on capturing a portion of the longevity risk transfer sector. Longevity swaps are a growing area of risk transfer which allows pension schemes and insurers to hedge the risk of retirees living longer […]

The first quarter of 2011 has already been an eventful one for reinsurers as there have been a number of events on which they will post losses, including the recent tropical Cyclone Yasi in Australia, flooding in Australia, wildfires (also in Australia) and developing losses from the New Zealand and Chile earthquakes from 2010. Add […]

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has released some figures on the claims received following the cold snap in the UK during December 2010. The cold snap experienced the year before in 2009 resulted in £650m in claims, the most recent 2010 cold snap has seen that figure double to £1.4 billion as the cold […]

The Vitality Re Ltd. insurance-linked security transaction issued on behalf of Aetna in December was a groundbreaking transaction in many ways. It allowed Aetna to transfer the risks of medical benefit claims exceeding pre-defined attachment points to the capital markets in a way previously not attempted, using a catastrophe bond type ILS structure.

The recent flooding experienced in Australia has severely impacted the mining industry there and brought to light shortcomings in their risk management plans especially with regards to hedging their weather risk. According to this article on Yahoo (from Reuters) as many as 16 coal mines have declared full or partial force majeur to allow them […]

Climate proofing and climate adaptation are becoming hot topics and receiving more coverage in recent weeks as countries begin to explain their plans for adapting and climate proofing the built and natural environment to combat the effects of climate change. In the UK, government departments have been unveiling plans to upgrade roads, move fish to […]

CATCo Investment Management, who recently launched their Reinsurance Opportunities Fund and floated it on the London Stock Exchange, have announced that they don’t foresee any impact from the Australian flooding events on their funds portfolio.

Non-traditional securitized assets have been growing in popularity and receiving increasing levels of interest from investors and issuers alike. The solid performance demonstrated during the recent downturn and continuing attractive bond yields should help to keep investor interest strong in non-traditional U.S. asset securitizations through 2011 according to a report from Standard & Poor’s.

Insured losses to residential, commercial, industrial properties and their contents and to automobiles from the U.S. winter storm which struck on February 1st – 2nd could reach as much as $1.4 billion according to risk modelling firm AIR Worldwide. AIR estimated anything between $790m and $1.4 billion, we believe it’s likely to be in the […]