Archive for February, 2011

Standard & Poor’s have today downgraded the ratings of two tranches of life insurance-linked notes issued by Avondale Securities SA. The notes issued by Avondale Securities, a special purpose vehicle set up in Luxembourg by the Bank Of Ireland, were designed to transfer a block of life insurance risk to the capital markets through securitisation […]

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) have published a report titled ‘Global Insurance-Linked Securitization Market Likely To Diversify Further In 2011‘. The report, available to subscribers of their RatingsDirect service, gives some insight into how they see the insurance-linked security markets prospects for development during 2011. Standard & Poor’s are responsible for rating the vast majority of […]

Insured losses from Cyclone Yasi could rise to as much as $1.5 billion according to AIR Worldwide’s initial estimate. Cyclone Yasi struck Queensland, Australia on Wednesday 2nd Feb bringing 300km/h winds and storm surge along the coastline. This loss on top of the expected losses from the flooding suffered in Queensland at the end of […]

Life settlements and the secondary market trading in life policies are becoming an increasingly prevalent insurance-linked investment opportunity for investors, insurance companies seeking to receive value for life policies held and pension firms. They’re also seen as one of the ways you can hedge some longevity risk by buying/trading in policies with a different longevity […]

It’s two years since the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched its snowfall derivative contracts giving market participants a way to hedge the risks of there being too much snowfall and that impacting their business and profits. The snowfall contracts have been gaining traction and increasing interest especially since the recent snow storms have struck the […]

Cyclone Yasi bore down on the Queensland, Australia coast yesterday and battered the coastal towns of Tully, Mission Beach and Cardwell where hundreds of homes have been destroyed. Cairns and Townsville, the nearest larger population centres, were left largely unscathed thanks to a change in the cyclones track as Yasi made a slight turn before […]

Insured losses from natural catastrophes in Queensland, Australia look set to jump following the landfall of Cyclone Yasi today on the coast. The storm, one of the strongest ever to approach the coast in that part of Queensland, made landfall carrying winds of up to 300km/h and was forecast to bring inches of rainfall to […]

We’ve received a press release from JPMorgan which gives much more detail on the longevity hedge transaction they have entered into with Pall (which we announced earlier). This deal is groundbreaking in terms of structure and has the potential to accelerate development in the longevity hedging and risk transfer market. The press release in full […]

Sources have told us, and the FT.com is reporting this morning, that JPMorgan have recently completed an important longevity hedging transaction which could help the market achieve its goal of becoming liquid enough for future trading to occur. The deal sees JPMorgan take on £70m worth of the longevity risks of the UK pension scheme […]