Archive for June, 2014

Another of the major rating agencies who assess the credit quality of the reinsurance sector has changed its outlook to negative today. Moody’s Investors Service now joins Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings in saying that reinsurers face increasing headwinds.

Big news today as Aon Benfield Securities announces the launch of CATstream, a product offering designed to streamline issuance of catastrophe bonds and access to the capital markets for its clients.

Leading insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance executives forecast continued growth for the ILS and reinsurance convergence sector, with more investment from the capital markets expected and the eventual transfer of risk across exchanges.

The New Zealand Earthquake Commission, who buys one of the world’s largest reinsurance programmes, has benefited from softer catastrophe reinsurance pricing in its latest renewal, allowing it to buy more cover while rates were down approximately 10%.

Each Wednesday morning we send out our regular e-mail newsletter, featuring a rundown of the last seven days catastrophe bond, insurance-linked securities (ILS), reinsurance capital and associated risk transfer news from Artemis.

The first-quarter of 2014 saw the highest volume of longevity swaps and pension risk transfers, as pension plans took advantage of the strong appetite for longevity risk and ample availability of longevity reinsurance capacity.

The reinsurance market remains ‘pretty rational’ despite the highly competitive and over-capitalised nature it finds itself in right now as well as the growing influence of insurance-linked securities (ILS), said Richard Watson, Chief Underwriting Officer at Hiscox.

Registrations of Bermuda special purpose insurance (SPI) vehicles in 2014 number 14 by the end of May, dropping slightly behind the run rate seen in 2013. However, overall insurance registrations for the year to date are 38, which outpaces 2013.

The sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett’s, reinsurance firm Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has renewed a health reinsurance agreement with Ireland’s state health insurer VHI and extended the contract to cover four years, providing much needed certainty for VHI.

Swiss Re proposed that Azerbaijan use parametric triggers for catastrophe insurance, to provide disaster recovery funding, as well as the establishment of a reinsurance pool to help to lower reinsurance coverage costs, at a meeting held in Baku.