Archive for June, 2012

Thailand’s Office of Insurance Commission have been discussing ways that the Asean (southeast Asian) region could increase the amount of catastrophe reinsurance cover they acquire and lower their costs. The OIC, who have recently launched their own catastrophe insurance pool, are actively promoting an idea to have an Asean natural catastrophe fund to help the […]

Standard & Poor’s recent insurance conference covered a number of pertinent topics for Artemis readers. Yesterday we covered comments from industry participants on the potential for life insurance-linked securitization to pick up and today we turn to the non-life space with catastrophe bonds and the reinsurance convergence market. One of the stand-out suggestions made during […]

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the insurance-linked securities market was only about catastrophe risk securitization if you looked at our Deal Directory and in recent months it has been. However, according to panelists at ratings agency Standard & Poor’s recent Insurance 2012 Conference there’s life in life insurance-linked securitization yet, particularly in the securitization […]

The size of the outstanding catastrophe bond market is something that everyone puts a different number on depending on whether they are talking non-life only, or perhaps they include health and longevity and whether they include some additional unrated transactions. One source who are consistent is broker Willis‘ capital markets division, Willis Capital Markets & […]

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a 230 page report looking at various issues affecting the pension markets and highlighting areas that need reforming in order for pension plans to meet their obligations and better serve their members. One of the issues covered in the bumper report is longevity risk and […]

U.S. lawfirm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP have announced the hire of a lawyer with considerable experience in the catastrophe bond space. Matthew S. Feig joins Stroock as Special Counsel in their Structured Finance and Insurance practice groups in the firm’s New York office. He comes from his most recent role with Cadwalader, Wickersham […]

Risk modeling firm RMS (Risk Management Solutions) recently held an event in London about their work in the longevity and mortality space and to discuss the upcoming launch of the latest version of their LifeRisks modeling solutions. The event featured talks from RMS staff about their LifeRisks 2.0 product and how it can be used […]

GC Securities, the investment banking and registered broker-dealer arm of reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter, have issued a press release regarding their involvement as lead structurer and joint bookrunner on the recently completed Long Point Re III Ltd. catastrophe bond which was issued on behalf of sponsoring U.S. insurer Travelers. GC Securities successfully assisted in the […]

Lancashire Holdings, the Bermuda and UK based provider of specialty insurance products, have announced the renewal of Accordion, their fully collateralized property retrocession sidecar facility. The Accordion Reinsurance Limited sidecar, which Lancashire launched last year, will be renewed for another twelve months to allow Lancashire to take advantage of current retrocessional reinsurance market conditions.

Catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities investors look set to benefit as the price and total-return indices have risen strongly in recent weeks after cat bond prices jumped during May and in the first week of June. It’s time for our regular fortnightly look at the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices (our last article here) […]