Archive for November, 2011

Property Claims Services (PCS), the agency who provide estimates of insured industry losses for catastrophe events in the U.S., have increased their estimate for hurricane Irene from $3.65 billion to $4.3 billion. This still puts insured losses from hurricane Irene right in the range of the original estimates made after the event.

Ratings agency A.M. Best has suggested that the recent severe flooding in Thailand could result in insured losses of as much as $20 billion once the final extent of the damage is understood. Industry estimates now range from $10 billion to $20 billion and over $4 billion of insurance claims have already been filed. The […]

The Compass Re Ltd. catastrophe bond, which has been doing the marketing rounds for the last few weeks, has upsized prior to closing due to strong investor demand. The cat bond is being issued by Bermuda domiciled Compass Re Ltd. for insurer National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, a subsidiary of Chartis, and will […]

Horseshoe Group, an independent insurance manager with a focus on the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, and ISIS Fund Services, a hedge fund administration services company, have joined forces to launch a new insurance-linked securities fund administrator. The joint-venture, ILS Fund Services Ltd., is a Bermuda exempted company operating as a licensed fund administrator dedicated to […]

USAA are again returning to the catastrophe bond market for what we believe will be their 17th cat bond issuance to date (details of every transaction can be found in our Deal Directory). This deal has been in the market for a few weeks but it’s another privately placed and unrated transaction (something USAA have […]

A new catastrophe bond has come to market which aims to provide coverage for workers compensation losses resulting from earthquakes. Golden State Re Ltd. is a Bermuda domiciled special purpose insurer set up to provide coverage to the California State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) for claims they may have to pay resulting from major earthquakes. […]

The outlook for the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked security market looks strong according to a number of market participants we’ve spoken with. This despite the slowdown in cat bond issuance experienced this year due to a number of large catastrophe events, triggered cat bonds and changes to risk models.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), a non-profit multi-country risk pooling initiative providing parametric hurricane or earthquake disaster cover to Caribbean countries, has scheduled its long-awaited parametric excess rainfall insurance product for the end of this year. Originally targeted for 2010, the product was eventually delayed due to the conclusion that the model used […]

CATCo’s latest fundraising takes it to roughly $1 billion assets under management CATCo Investment Management have announced today that they have grown their CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd. to $338m after another round of fundraising. CATCo have received new commitments from institutional investors of $125m and are issuing new C Shares to accommodate the new […]

Japanese non-life insurers, hit by huge claims followed by soaring reinsurance rates after the devastating earthquake and tsunami which hit the country in March may become active in sourcing alternative catastrophe reinsurance arrangements, according to Fitch Ratings in a new report. The report ‘Japan Earthquake Insurance: The Great Tohoku’s Effects‘ looks at the state of […]