Archive for July, 2011

We wrote last week that some weather traders are taking advantage of the recent heat wave across the U.S. to profit from making the right choices with their weather derivative contract purchases. The high temperatures caused some weather derivative contract prices to soar on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) allowing traders to cash in.

Signum Finance Cayman Ltd. Series 2010-09 is not the best known insurance-linked security but it is an interesting transaction. We first wrote about the deal back in November 2010 when it was issued by Goldman Sachs. The transaction is designed to provide Goldman Sachs with a mortality hedge for a defined block of life insurance.

We covered two interesting insights from Aon Benfield’s recently published ILS Second Quarter Update 2011 report last week when we wrote about the Aon Benfield ILS indices and the heightened interest in catastrophe bonds among Japanese insurers. A third insight from the report looks at the cat bond market in Europe and the potential for […]

In an article discussing the catastrophe bond market which was published yesterday, rating agency A.M. Best suggest that $3 billion worth of new catastrophe bond issuance is possible during the second half of the year. With just over $1.5 billion issued during the first half of 2011 the market has some way to go to […]

The financial services sector, especially insurers and the commodity markets, can make better risk decisions thanks to increased scientific knowledge about the climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, according to a new research report commissioned from the Met Office by the Lighthill Risk Network.

A rarely seen occurrence in the catastrophe bond market, a cat bond transaction designed to protect a corporate sponsor, has begun marketing today with the launch of Pylon II Capital Ltd. The transaction ultimately covers Electricite De France (better known as EDF), one of the largest energy companies in the world and a leader in […]

Risk modeller AIR Worldwide have announced the release of a new tropical cyclone model for Central America. The new model covers Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama offering modelling technology for the effects of both wind and precipitation induced flooding which are the two main causes of damage from tropical storms […]

KPMG reports today in a press release that the volume of pension buy-in deals in the UK has reached over £3 billion in the past year. Buy-ins see pension funds transfer some of their liabilities to the insurance market often with the sole purpose of offloading the longevity risk which is inherent in many large […]

AQR Capital Management, an investment management firm based in Greenwich, CT, have announced in a press release this morning that they have formed a reinsurance group tasked with developing investment strategies which they believe will have low correlation with traditional markets and hedge funds.

The BBC, or British Broadcasting Corporation to give the television and radio production company its full name, has a £9 billion pension scheme which as you’d expect has a significant portion of its assets invested in various alternative asset types. One of those alternatives that the BBC has chosen to invest a portion of the […]