Archive for November, 2012

2012 has been a landmark year for the catastrophe bond market, with the second highest level of issuance on record (as we wrote back in October here) for a single year which, according to insight from Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA) has now taken the cat bond market to an all time high in terms […]

In a move which was to be expected, rating agency Standard & Poor’s have downgraded one aggregate class of notes issued in USAA’s Residential Reinsurance 2011 Ltd. (Series 2011-1)  catastrophe bond transaction as a result of the qualifying losses caused by hurricane Sandy. On the 6th November S&P placed the Class 5 notes of both […]

Reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter has released some results from a survey which saw them poll insurance and reinsurance executives who attended the 2012 Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) Annual Meeting recently. The survey looked to identify the key drivers and threats to profitable growth in the industry and asked participants a number of […]

As is to be expected after a natural catastrophe event with the size and reach of hurricane and post-tropical storm Sandy, the estimates of insurance industry losses keep rising. This is typical of a complex, never seen in recent times, catastrophe event. For a great example of how loss estimates can creep under these circumstances […]

The insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond market outlook is very positive in the short-term, according to the latest quarterly ILS market report from Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA), the capital market division of global broker Willis. The report titled ‘Spreads Continue to Tighten as Sandy Impact Is Assessed‘ looks at the transactions which came […]

A report published by Standard & Poor’s suggests that reinsurers have a material cushion before losses from hurricane Sandy become a capital event. Despite continued uncertainty around the final amount of insured losses from the storm, S&P believe that the reinsurance sector’s strong capital base and strong earnings this year will enable it to withstand […]

According to comments from Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA), the capital market division of global broker Willis, hurricane Sandy’s impact on the catastrophe bond market is likely to be muted. The scope and scale of Sandy make it unlikely that any cat bonds will be triggered, under current loss estimates, but if losses mount […]

Normally by this stage of the month we have a pretty good idea how insurance-linked security and catastrophe bond funds have performed in the prior month, but this time Sandy has muddied the waters somewhat. ILS fund managers are being slower to publish their funds October returns as calculating the impact of mark-to-market losses caused […]

CATCo Investment Management, the specialist Bermuda based reinsurance-linked investment business that manages around $2 billion of retrocessional reinsurance portfolios for its clients, has commuted a portion of its losses from the Costa Concordia marine disaster according to a stock exchange announcement. Commuting the losses early allows them to be accounted for now and reduces the […]

For some institutional and professional investors the occurrence of hurricane Sandy at this time, and the large insurance and reinsurance industry loss that the event will no doubt cause, has the effect of making the sector an even more attractive place to invest. Prior to Sandy, the reinsurance sector was heading for a year of […]