Archive for March, 2013

The trend for recent catastrophe bonds to see very attractive terms and pricing continues with North Carolina wind pools, the North Carolina Joint Underwriters Assn. (NCJUA) and the North Carolina Insurance Underwriters Assn. (NCIUA), Tar Heel Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1) cat bond. As insurance linked securities (ILS) investors demonstrate once again their strong appetite for […]

According to an announcement from reinsurance-linked investment manager CATCo Investment Management, the latest re-survey of hurricane Sandy loss estimates has now been completed and published by Property Claims Services (PCS). After hurricane, or superstorm, Sandy struck the U.S. northeast last year, PCS first reported the industry loss estimate as $11 billion in November, a number […]

The current pricing trend for new catastrophe bonds continues to surprise, and beat or compete closely with reinsurance pricing, with the latest example being Florida Citizens new Everglades Re Series 2013 near-halving in price on Friday. As always, you can read every market news story and article on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our […]

The Board of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance, the state backed property insurer of last resort, has just approved its reinsurance and risk transfer plans for 2013 including the second catastrophe bond from the insurer, Everglades Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1). The Board made it clear just how much they appreciate the risk transfer from the capital […]

Third-party investor capitals increasing interest and growing influence in the insurance and reinsurance markets is something that insurers and reinsurers are going to have to get used to as a ‘new normal’, according to the Chairman of ACE European Group, Andrew Kendrick. Kendrick spoke on the topic of ‘Managing the new normal – sustainable underwriting’ […]

Swiss Re’s Vega Capital Ltd. Series 2010-1 catastrophe bond transaction, which was issued on behalf of the sponsoring reinsurer in December 2010, has had its Class C notes ratings upgraded again by Moody’s on a further improved outlook thanks to a growing reserve account. This is despite the reserve account having faced a small loss […]

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) has once again been considering the use of catastrophe bonds as part of its reinsurance and risk transfer arrangements in 2013. TWIA is an insurer of last resort which provides windstorm and hail insurance to Texas Gulf Coast property owners who might otherwise be left uninsured. It’s not the first […]

U.S. insurer Nationwide Mutual’s Caelus Re 2013-1 catastrophe bond has only just come to market this month yet the insurer is returning to the cat bond market already for a Caelus Re 2013 Ltd. (Series 2013-2) issuance. The recent Caelus Re 2013-1 was extremely well received by investors, which helped it increase in size and the pricing on […]

The Montpelier Re backed Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund will look to pursue a series of placings of new shares in the company to accommodate new investor inflows as part of a fund-raising push. The fund, which invests in catastrophe exposed fully collateralised reinsurance-linked contracts and other ILS type investments, launched in December having raised […]

U.S. primary insurer State Farm’s latest catastrophe bond has seemingly been successful and has upsized during the marketing phase and pricing has dropped to the lower end of the suggested range. Merna Re IV Ltd. sees sponsor State Farm seeking a new source of earthquake reinsurance protection from the capital markets via a cat bond […]