Archive for September, 2011

U.S. Re Corporation have announced the hire of Daniel Butzbaugh, a specialist in alternative risk transfer and the capital markets, who has joined them as a senior broker. Previously of GFI Group, Inc., New York, he has also served as Assistant Vice President in the Structured Products Division of Quanta U.S. Holdings and before that […]

U.S. insurer State Farm says that it has paid its policyholders $5 billion so far during 2011 for catastrophe claims resulting from damage to homes, cars and other property caused by weather related catastrophes so far this year. State Farm, the largest U.S. insurer of homes and autos, says that 2011 is likely to be […]

French reinsurer SCOR has officially announced the launch of their Atropos insurance-linked securities fund today. We’ve written about Atropos previously, you can find our earlier articles about this new ILS fund here, the fund actually launched on the 31st August and has since been marketed to investors but SCOR have today published a press release regarding […]

Another fortnight has passed since we last looked at the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices to assess how their performance had improved, or otherwise. The indices have both climbed strongly in the last two weeks and completely recovered all losses experienced as hurricane Irene approached. The price returns index remains significantly down on the […]

It’s been another busy week here at Artemis with many new articles to read. Unsurprisingly the most read news of the last week was our article about an innovative new type of risk which was securitized and sold to investors. Here, to give our readers a chance to catch up on any news they have […]

The burden placed on the governments of developing nations after natural disasters and other catastrophe events can be huge. Much of the developing world is particularly exposed to a wide range of natural catastrophes but insurance and reinsurance penetration is low meaning that the government can end up picking up the pieces.

Typhoon Roke, the 15th named storm of the northwest Pacific typhoon season, made landfall on Honshu island, Japan on the 21st September. A major storm with winds of 180kmh, typhoon Roke was a category 2 typhoon. Roke travelled across as much as 350km of Japan, impacting Tokyo where transport disruption and some falling trees were […]

The subject of reinsurance rates and whether they will rise at the 1st January renewals has been a hot topic all year with many reinsurers expecting increases and many brokers attempting to get the best prices possible for their clients. Events during 2011 such as the New Zealand earthquakes, Japanese tsunami, U.S. tornadoes and recent […]

Reinsurer Swiss Re and it’s member colleagues of the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (MiCRO) are to develop a parametric microinsurance policy aimed at women entrepreneurs in Haiti. The scheme will offer a way to enable Haitian women struck by cholera with a rapid insurance payment for income lost by their businesses due to their illness. […]

Almost exactly a year ago we wrote about a report from MSA Research Inc. and Baron Insurance Services Inc. which looked at the Canadian regulatory environment and asked how it could impact an insurance-linked securities market in Canada. Now, the latest MSA/Baron Outlook report has been published and an article in it makes proposals for […]