Archive for April, 2011

Tornado activity over the last week has eclipsed all records for the number of recorded tornadoes recorded and that weather trend looks set to continue for the next few days according to an informative report from risk modelling company EQECAT. A weather system tracking east across the U.S. has generated reports of 267 tornado touchdowns […]

Total global reinsurer capital reached an all time high of $470 billion at 31st December 2010 according to a report from Aon Benfield. That figure of $470 billion was an increase of 17% over the 2009 period. As a result they believe reinsurers are capitalised enough to withstand the Q1 catastrophe losses.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), the non-profit multi-country risk pool for the Caribbean, has since its launch in 2007 paid out $32,179,470 to its members after disasters struck. The facility counts sixteen Caribbean countries as members and seven of those members have received a payout in the four years the facility has operated […]

Moody’s, the rating agency, has published a report (available here to subscribers to their service) looking at capital levels in the catastrophe reinsurance market and conclude that there is ample capital entering the market so reinsurers are unlikely to see a let up in competition.

Hannover Re has bought a portfolio of reinsurance from Scottish Re which was part of a life insurance securitization issued under SPV Orkney Re. Through the acquisition Hannover Re now assumes the mortality risk of term life and endowment policies which were reinsured by Scottish Re during the underwriting years of 2000 to 2003.

Allianz has issued a press release announcing the completion of the fourth takedown under their Blue Fin Ltd. catastrophe bond program (as we wrote yesterday). The $40m cat bond deal provides Allianz with capital markets cover for U.S. hurricane and earthquake events using a modeled loss trigger mechanism until May 2013.

Yesterday we wrote about the ratings impact of a new hurricane risk model on a number of cat bond transactions. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s placed 16 tranches of catastrophe bond deals on CreditWatch negative because they believe that the changes to Risk Management Solutions (RMS) U.S. hurricane risk model are sufficient to cause concern […]

The latest catastrophe bond issuance by Allianz under their Blue Fin Ltd. SPV was admitted on completion to the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange on Friday. As we wrote last week, Allianz were seeking to issue a further $40m of catastrophe bonds under the Blue Fin program to provide them with additional aggregate protection for U.S. […]

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has placed the ratings of 16 tranches of catastrophe bond deals on CreditWatch negative due to recent changes in the risk model which was used to assess these cat bonds risks at the time of their issue. All the affected transactions utilise the Risk Management Solutions (RMS) RiskLink U.S. hurricane […]

CATCo, the investment manager with a reinsurance opportunities fund listed on the London Stock Exchange, has recently increased its capital base through share issues (article’s here and here on their capital raising activities). Then, we wrote last week that they were expecting to see significant increases in pricing of retrocessional reinsurance which would result in […]