Archive for May, 2012

It’s time for another of our regular looks at the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices (our last article here) to see what they can tell us about movements in pricing and returns of outstanding catastrophe bonds and the general sentiment of the cat bond and insurance-linked securities marketplace. For the first time in a […]

We’ve now seen two tropical storms in the Atlantic basin and the Atlantic hurricane season doesn’t officially begin until the 1st June, very unusual. One storm, Beryl, made landfall on the Florida coastline giving the State an early warning of what could lie ahead. Meanwhile hurricane Bud threatened the MultiCat Mexico 2009 catastrophe bond, but […]

The 2012 Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season is already proving to be unusual and it hasn’t officially started yet. The hurricane season officially begins on the 1st of June and yet currently in the Atlantic sub-tropical storm Beryl is making a steady path towards the U.S. coastline as the second tropical storm of the […]

Fitch Ratings have published their annual hurricane season desk reference report, available to Fitch subscribers here, which looks at the health of the re/insurance sector and its ability to cope with the impending 2012 Atlantic hurricane season. The report suggests that sufficient capacity remains in the re/insurance markets to meet the demand for coverage just […]

The Weather Risk Management Association (WRMA), an international trade organisation dedicated to promoting the weather risk management sector, has announced the appointment of new industry figures to its board of directors and the election of the organisations officers. These officials are entrusted with leading and counseling the organisation through 2012 and 2013.

Hurricane Bud, the first Pacific hurricane of the season to threaten landfall on the Mexican coast has strengthened considerably into a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 115mph and a minimum central pressure of 960mb. The forecast path for hurricane Bud has changed since we wrote about the storm yesterday when forecasters said […]

Back in February we first wrote about the Volcker Rule which is part of the Dodd Frank Act and SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s attempt to highlight concerns about the way this rule could impact the issuance of insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds. Part of the rule, formally known as Section 13 […]

The first Pacific hurricane of the year to head towards the Mexican coastline will have caught the eye of investors in the MultiCat Mexico 2009 Ltd. catastrophe bond. Hurricane Bud is heading towards the Mexican coastline, aiming very close to one of the MultiCat cat bond trigger zones. Currently hurricane Bud has 90mph winds but […]

We’re starting to hear rumblings from a number of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond investors that the high volume of cat bonds brought to market this year is beginning to have an impact on ILS funds and investors ability to diversify their portfolios. The speed with which new deals have appeared and the appetite […]

Reinsurer Swiss Re has announced the completion of a £1.4 billion longevity insurance transaction for one of AkzoNobel’s UK pension funds. The collateralised re/insurance deal was written through Swiss Re subsidiary ReAssure Ltd. The transaction covers 17,000 individuals and their future contingent beneficiaries who were members of the AkzoNobel Pension Scheme at the 1st August […]