Archive for February, 2012

Prudential Financial have announced their first longevity reinsurance transaction of 2012. The deal see’s Prudential Retirement reinsure Goldman Sachs subsidiary Rothesay Life, covering the longevity related pension liabilities almost 20,000 members of the Uniq plc Pension Scheme who are insured by Rothesay through a buy-in transaction. The longevity reinsurance covers pension liability values of $665m […]

GC Securities, the capital markets arm of broker Guy Carpenter and a division of MMC Securities, have published a press release regarding the recent completion of the Kibou Ltd. Japanese earthquake catastrophe bond. The $300m transaction is the first pure Japan earthquake cat bond to come to market since the Tohoku earthquake of March 2011.

PERILS AG, the independent Zurich-based company providing industry-wide European catastrophe insurance data and loss indices, has released an initial loss estimate for another of the European windstorms which affected the region this winter. Windstorm Andrea hit western Europe on the 4th and 5th of January 2012, impacting Germany, UK, France, Benelux and Switzerland.

An article published today on Opalesque, a publisher of news and insight on the alternative investments and hedge fund market, highlights insurance-linked securities as an asset class offering attractive returns. The article which briefly discusses the fact that small hedge funds have been outperforming larger hedge funds in January 2012, picks out ILS as one […]

Incisive Media publications Risk and Energy Risk have again published the results of an annual survey where they ask readers and market participants for their opinions on who are the leading commodity dealers and brokers in various categories of relevant markets. One of the sectors they poll on is the weather derivative market which is […]

Primary issuance in the catastrophe bond market has been strong at the end of 2011 and into 2012. Seven new catastrophe bond and insurance-linked security transactions have been brought to market since the start of the year and if issuance keeps going at this pace we could see a very healthy volume of deals in […]

U.S. insurer Liberty Mutual have launched their first catastrophe bond transaction since March 2009 (when they issued their last Mystic Re II deal), this will be their fifth catastrophe bond transaction. Liberty Mutual are seeking to secure a source of multi-year cat bond cover through a newly established Cayman Islands domiciled SPV, Mystic Re III […]

German reinsurance firm Munich Re is returning to the insurance-linked securities market with another transaction in their Queen Street series of catastrophe bond transactions. Munich Re are a regular participant in the ILS and cat bond markets, and this latest cat bond will be their fifth Queen Street deal, but we actually have Munich Re […]

CATCo Investment Management have published the annual financial report for the year of 2011 for their flagship fund, the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund. Despite a record year of catastrophe losses during 2011 CATCo’s fund still managed to generate a positive return for their investors and shareholders.

Two classes of notes issued by Montana Re Ltd. in its Series 2010-1 catastrophe bond deal have been upgraded by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. The $210m cat bond sponsored by reinsurer Flagstone Re affords them cover for U.S. hurricane, U.S. earthquake, European windstorm, Japan typhoon and Japan earthquake events. The Class C and Class […]