Archive for March, 2011

Normally we refer once a month to the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices and that is enough as their movement is rarely sudden. The events in Japan however were highly unusual and after exceptional events such as the tragic earthquake and tsunami disaster the catastrophe bond indices are a good sign of how the […]

Swiss Re has issued a press release announcing its initial estimate of its claims costs from the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami events. They estimate their claims, net of retrocession and before tax, at $1.2 billion and point out that this figure is subject to a high degree of uncertainty as events unfold.

The outcome for the catastrophe bonds exposed to the Japanese earthquake event is becoming clearer. Of the deals exposed, the first to have its ratings put on watch for a downgrade is Topiary Capital Ltd., a $200m second-event U.S. hurricane, earthquake, Euro windstorm and most importantly Japanese quake bond issued on behalf of Platinum Underwriters […]

Farmers in the eastern, drought hit province of Kenya are benefitting from a microinsurance program which sold them weather-index insurance. The insurance policies pay out based on actual weather conditions making them particularly suitable to the developing world where education about how the claims process works can be difficult.

Data required to identify whether losses will be borne by some of the catastrophe bonds exposed to the Japanese earthquake disaster is not available at the moment. This is hindering risk modelling firm efforts to calculate index values and determine losses on the exposed cat bonds.

The Weather Risk Management Association held their Australian meeting, a conference and networking opportunity for members and interested parties in Australia and New Zealand, last week. With the scale of recent weather disasters in Australia, such as flooding, wildfires and droughts, weather risk is a very hot topic at the moment. Australian companies do not […]

We anticipate this being the last day we publish updates regarding the Japan earthquake and tsunami disaster in this manner. We will, of course, continue to cover any relevant items that arise in the coming weeks. Now one week on from the initial disaster, the scale of the event is much clearer and the reinsurance […]

A.M. Best reported on the 15th that insured losses from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster, combined with losses experienced from other disasters in Q1 such as the New Zealand quake and Australian floods, could hinder many reinsurers from hitting their underwriting profit targets for the full year.

Russian insurer ROSNO, a subsidiary of Allianz, has launched a new weather insurance product for their clients. Allianz Risk Transfer assisted ROSNO in the development of this new product to protect clients against unfavourable weather.

Certain Taiwanese news sources are reporting that the possibility of using catastrophe bonds as a way to spread the risk of earthquakes in Taiwan has been discussed within government circles. The topic was raised by legislators in a question to an executive of the Taiwan Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on the 16th March.