Archive for July, 2012

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the spectre of the total return swap counterparty vanished from the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities market a number of years ago after Lehman Brothers collapse caused the default of a number of cat bonds they were a swap counterparty to. However there are still deals using a total […]

In the last fortnight the unseasonal rise of the catastrophe bond price return index has stopped and the trend is now more in line with how we would expect the index to be moving at this time of year, during the U.S. hurricane season. It’s time for our fortnightly look at the Swiss Re Cat […]

Some important news in the ILS, catastrophe bond and reinsurance space this week as the first news of an impact to two outstanding cat bonds from severe thunderstorms became clear. At this stage there is no likelihood of any losses to investors but the downgrade of the Residential Re deals should serve as a reminder […]

The recent unseasonal trend for rising outstanding catastrophe bond prices in the secondary market, when it is more typical for them to be falling at this time of year, has helped Swiss insurance-linked securities investment manager Plenum Investments achieve their best monthly return ever. June saw Plenum’s USD denominated ILS fund return 1.26%, a very […]

It’s that time of year again when our good friends at Environmental Finance announce the winners of their annual awards for companies and deals within the sectors their magazine and website covers. Of particular interest this year is their selection for the Weather Risk Management Deal of the Year. The winner is a weather risk […]

International law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP have announced the hire of a new partner who brings with them extensive experience in the insurance-linked securities and alternative risk transfer areas of the insurance market. Stanford A. Renas has joined the firm as partner in its Structured Finance and Securitization Practice and will be working out […]

Munich Re have published some comments on the completion of their latest multiperil catastrophe bond, Queen Street VI Re Ltd. The sixth deal in the Queen Street series of cat bonds, Queen Street VI provides Munich Re with a $100m source of reinsurance protection for two of their peak perils, U.S. hurricane and European windstorms. […]

Back in mid-September of 2011 the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) had just taken the volume of insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds listed on the exchange to over the $2 billion mark for the first time, as we wrote here. By January of 2012 they broke that record and cleared $3 billion of ILS listings. Now […]

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) have published a follow up to their November 2011 paper on the insurance and reinsurance sectors and whether they contribute to global systemic risk. The latest paper looks specifically at reinsurance and concerns related to whether there are connections between reinsurance and broader financial stability. It looks at […]

The U.S. severe thunderstorm season of 2012 has begun to impact the catastrophe bond market as two catastrophe events have resulted in qualifying ultimate net losses for two of USAA’s Residential Reinsurance cat bond deals. According to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s two specific outbreaks of severe thunderstorm and tornadic weather have qualified under the […]