Archive for June, 2014

The continued influx of alternative reinsurance capital from third-party and institutional investor sources into the reinsurance market has led to increased competition and changes in underwriting behaviour, according to Endurance CEO John Charman.

Jardine Lloyd Thompson Capital Markets (JLTCM) Inc. has closed the largest Oak Leaf Re private placement catastrophe bond to date, with the completion of Oak Leaf Re Ltd. (Series 2014-1) at $44.035m.

Insurance industry losses from hail storms and extreme hail events are rising, with recent storms showing that hail should no longer be considered just an attritional loss causing peril, according to risk modeller RMS.

Specialist insurer of defined benefit pension funds Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has completed another large pension risk transfer, taking on £1.6 billion of pensioner liabilities including longevity risks, from oil company Total’s UK pension plan.

Some risks are more suited to the traditional reinsurance model, where underwriter skill and experience are crucial, but there are certain risks that are better in the capital markets where capital efficiencies can be realised, according to AIG’s Peter Hancock.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 8th June 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.

This interview with Dr. Erwann O. Michel-Kerjan of The Wharton School discusses the impact of risk spreads on insurance-linked securities (ILS) and how the changes in spreads affect the insurance and reinsurance inked securities markets growth.

Industry participants at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services’ 30th Annual Insurance Conference said that they expect alternative reinsurance capital and ILS to keep growing, expand its remit and agreed that the new capital is here to stay, even post-event.

ILS Diversified Ltd., a fund-of-funds which invests in the insurance and reinsurance linked investments market via allocations to insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds, has outperformed the wider ILS fund market in its first month of operation.

The insured losses from severe weather in the United States continue to rise, with thunderstorms, tornadoes and hail in May expected to cause an insurance industry loss of over $1 billion, the second month in a row that insured losses have reached that level.