Archive for September, 2013

Multi-Strat Re Ltd., the Bermuda based reinsurance venture that enables asset managers, such as hedge fund managers, to enter the reinsurance market with less friction, has a new Chairman and CEO in Bob Forness who was appointed to the roles recently.

Rating agency A.M. Best raises an interesting question in a report published today which looks at the impact of broker arranged facilities in the London insurance and reinsurance market. The report looks broker arranged facilities and suggests that they could be an area of opportunity for alternative reinsurance capital.

The Mercury investible Catastrophe Risk Index, or MiCRIX for short, one of the indices that we play host to here on Artemis has seen accelerating returns in the months of July and August. The index has delivered returns of 4.2% since June, gaining 1.2% in July and 3.0% in August alone, a stunning performance by […]

Dominic Christian, co-CEO and CEO of International at reinsurance broker Aon Benfield, made a number of interesting comments at the brokers pre-Monte Carlo Rendezvous press briefing on Monday. One point Christian made was that traditional reinsurers need to look to the ILS market for inspiration.

French reinsurer SCOR has made some structural changes to its latest catastrophe bond issuance, the extreme mortality-linked Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2013-1), at the last-minute and has pulled one tranche of notes completely from the issuance while increasing the size of the other.

Global reinsurer capital has risen by 1% so far this year, reaching $510 billion by June 30th according to reinsurance broker Aon Benfield’s latest Aon Benfield Aggregate study. The report highlights the impact of the capital markets which have been responsible for boosting reinsurer capital at a time when traditional business models have struggled.

Interesting acquisition news today as the world’s largest reinsurance firm Munich Re announced it has reached an agreement with Bermudian reinsurer RennaissanceRe to acquire RenRe’s weather and weather-related energy risk management unit, RenRe Energy Advisors Ltd.

Risk and reinsurance intermediary Guy Carpenter has hired a chief operating officer to its Global Strategic Advisory Group as it seeks to join-up its offering for clients, enabling them to take advantage of new alternative reinsurance capital sources, such as the capital markets and third-party investors.

Demonstrating another way that institutional investors and capital markets money can make its way into the reinsurance sector, underwriting agency Pioneer Underwriting is launching a property catastrophe reinsurance startup with the help of backing from a range of investors.

Capital markets and third-party investors have shown their approval of the first mortality-linked catastrophe bond of the year, Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2013-1) an extreme mortality insurance-linked security sponsored by French reinsurer SCOR, helping it to grow in size and pushing pricing expectations down.