Archive for July, 2013

The effects felt by some traditional reinsurers from accelerating convergence, between reinsurance and capital market backed reinsurance alternatives, are likely to continue according to a report from Bernstein Research. It forecasts reinsurance convergence and third-party capital will challenge the sectors incumbents for many renewals to come.

Platinum Underwriters Holdings, a Bermuda based provider of property, casualty and finite risk reinsurance coverages to a global client base, has said that it chose not to issue any catastrophe bonds since its 2008 Topiary Capital transaction matured. It has however tapped alternative reinsurance capacity this year.

The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has published its assessment methodology and policy measures for global systemically important insurers, or G-SIIs. As we wrote previously, there had been some uncertainty about how insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds would be treated, but this has now been clarified.

Bermuda based provider of global specialty insurance and reinsurance products, AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd., is sponsoring what we believe to be its first catastrophe bond transaction with the launch of the latest deal to hit the market, Northshore Re Limited (Series 2013-1).

Trading volumes in the secondary market for catastrophe bond notes have picked up in the last couple of months, according to investment managers and trading desks. The key reason for this heightened trading activity has been the high issuance seen in the primary market into June, but other factors also served to make the secondary […]

The MetroCat Re Ltd. catastrophe bond, which launched recently, has been receiving attention from the broader financial press and local New York media outlets. That’s no surprise given the unusual nature of the cat bond, as the first storm surge only cat bond and the first time a U.S. transit agency has sponsored a cat […]

The DCG Iris Limited insurance-linked security (ILS) and reinsurance-linked investment fund said today that it will hold a continuation vote and offer its shareholders a chance to redeem their share capital before conducting another placement of new shares. The continuation vote and redemption offer are required as DCG Iris has not hit its £150m fund-raising […]

We’ve been talking for a while about the gradual decoupling of pricing of insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds from traditional reinsurance rates. Essentially this means that ILS and cat bonds can now be cheaper and no longer follow exactly the same pricing patterns that are seen across the broader reinsurance market.

The drop in property catastrophe reinsurance pricing, which has affected reinsurance renewals in June and July with reinsurance rate reductions showing no sign of slowing, has not yet translated into reductions in primary insurance pricing, according to comments made by the CEO of independent insurance broker Brown & Brown.

Insurance-linked securities and reinsurance-linked investment manager Nephila Capital, the largest asset manager in the space with just over $7.89 billion of insurance-linked assets under management at the firm, has been selected as one of the sub-advisors for a new mutual multi-manager fund offering from Blackstone Alternative Asset Management.