Archive for February, 2012

We’re now into February and we’d like to thank our readers for their support as we’ve had a record number of visitors in January, a great start to 2012. The last week has been busy with more cat bond and ILS deals completing and upsizing, discussion of the ILW markets and more predictions for the […]

A few weeks ago in January we wrote that ratings agency Standard & Poor’s had placed the notes issued by Vitality Re Ltd. and Vitality Re II Ltd. on CreditWatch with positive implications. The two medical benefit ratio insurance-linked securities deals sponsored by Aetna had experienced positive claims trends and S&P wrote that they could […]

Hedge fund backed Bermuda reinsurer Third Point Reinsurance Company have published a press release announcing further operational milestones as the start-up company gets down to business. Third Point Re was launched with the backing of New York based hedge fund Third Point LLC and raised over $750m of capital ($785m apparently) which they’re now putting […]

Almost everyone we speak to is bullish about the prospects for the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities market over the year ahead. Most people predict an issuance volume of at least equal to 2011, but some are predicting much higher. One of those people predicting a year of growth is Christophe Fritsch, head of insurance-linked […]

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about renewable energy risk analysis firm 3TIER® who published a wind performance map for the U.S. in 2011 which showed that generally wind speeds across the U.S. were above average across the year. Now 3Tier have published a wind performance map for Europe and again it shows that […]

In the fourth of our prediction pieces, where we ask a leading participant in the insurance-linked securities, catastrophe bond and reinsurance convergence sectors to give us their opinion on how these sectors will evolve in 2012, we spoke with Bill Dubinsky, Managing Director, Willis Capital Markets & Advisory, the capital markets arm of global insurance […]

Specialty insurance company Assurant Inc. have published a press release on the completion of their Ibis Re II Ltd. Series 2012-1 catastrophe bond this week. It’s Assurant’s third cat bond deal under an Ibis Re SPV. The latest deal which secured Assurant $130m of collateralized reinsurance coverage via a cat bond will replace some of […]