Archive for May, 2011

USAA have successfully issued their 16th natural catastrophe bond recently through their latest Cayman Islands domiciled special purpose vehicle Residential Reinsurance 2011 Ltd. The four year deal was marketed at around $200m in size but USAA have managed to secure $250m of cover through this their latest cat bond demonstrating that despite a quiet market […]

For pension scheme sponsors and trustees longevity risk, the risk associated with pensioners living longer resulting in pension schemes paying them for longer than expected, remains a major concern and one that has increased in importance to them in the past year, according to a study by MetLife Assurance.

Scottish Re, the Bermuda based run-off life reinsurer, has announced the completion of the unwind of their 2005 Orkney I life insurance securitization transaction. The announcement also signifies the completion of the transfer of the block of business to Hannover Life Reassurance Company of America.

Insurer State Farm, has announced that it has already paid close to $1 billion in claims to policyholders for damage caused by severe thunderstorm, hail and tornado damage in late April and early May. If categorized as one event State Farm say the three most devastating outbreaks would be the seventh most costly homeowner loss […]

Not content with the listing of millions of shares announced a couple of days ago, CATCo Investment Management have listed additional Class C shares of their CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund on the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

At the recent Weather Risk Management Association’s (WRMA) 13th annual meeting held in Houston, Texas earlier this month participants on a panel about power and natural gas agreed that the energy markets continue to be the primary users of weather hedging and weather risk management tools.

Fitch Ratings have published an interesting report which analyses the potential effects that a major landfalling U.S. hurricane could have on some of the larger insurance companies and the industry as a whole. After the catastrophic, and loss filled first few months of 2011 insurers are going to find that any major loss event caused […]

Pension Corporation, a UK insurer of pension plans and one of the largest players in the longevity risk transfer and pension de-risking markets, is seeking additional funding totalling UK£400m from an investment of fresh capital from Luxembourg based specialist investment fund Reinet.

The spread of index-based weather insurance into the developing world continues apace as new products are launched on a regular basis which allow residents, farmers, business owners and governments to hedge the risks of weather impacting their livelihood. The speed with which weather-index insurance has been adopted puts to shame many developed western nations who […]

Our good friends over at Environmental Finance have opened the call for nominations for their 2011 Environmental Finance awards. The annual awards have two categories which our readers should be particularly interested in; Weather Risk Management Transaction of the Year and Catastrophe Risk Management Transaction of the Year.