Archive for March, 2014

Strong demand from investors for catastrophe bond notes in the secondary market continued to have an offsetting effect on seasonal price movements in February, as issuance still fails to satisfy excess investor appetite for the asset class.

Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire’s latest catastrophe bond transaction, Kizuna Re II Ltd. has completed with the lowest coupon Artemis has seen for a Japanese quake cat bond, but with a particularly high multiple compared to the expected loss.

The strongest earthquake to hit the Los Angeles area of California since the 1994 Northridge event has struck the region in the past hour. The magnitude 4.4 quake is a reminder of the threat this peril poses to the reinsurance and catastrophe bond market.

Specialist reinsurance linked asset manager CATCo Investment Management has launched a new investment fund called Aquilo which will target traditional reinsurance, rather than the retrocession market which is more typical of the firm.

Efforts to shrink Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance continue to see the property insurer of last resorts homeowner policy base moving back into the private insurance market and the next step could be to depopulate commercial policies as well.

The price guidance on U.S. primary insurer State Farm’s $300m Merna Re V Ltd. U.S. earthquake catastrophe bond has dropped to the low-end of the marketed range, Artemis understands, making it the lowest coupon for a U.S. quake cat bond ever.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 16th March 2014, on catastrophe bonds, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics, from the last seven days on Artemis. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

Warren Buffett, chairman of diversified investment, insurance and reinsurance firm Berkshire Hathaway, said yesterday that his firm has pulled back from U.S. catastrophe reinsurance business as the rates are no longer attractive.

Investment management group Schroders continues to see strong inflows into its UCITS catastrophe bond fund strategy, which has forced the firm to actively manage the capacity of the fund and may result in its closure to new investors.

The recently announced plans of Bermuda-based insurance and reinsurance group Arch Capital and investment management firm Highbridge Capital to launch a third-party capital backed venture named Watford Re are an interesting take on the trend.