Archive for August, 2014

A new catastrophe bond transaction, Golden State Re II Ltd., has launched on behalf of the California State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) as it looks to secure more capital market protection for workers compensation claims caused by earthquakes.

Key activities during issuance of a catastrophe bond or insurance-linked security (ILS) fall to the capital markets divisions of global reinsurance brokers, reinsurers and specialist investment bank units in arranging, structuring and marketing ILS deals.

Mergers and acquisitions seem firmly in the reinsurance markets future with excess capital, growing competition and the increasing availability of alternative reinsurance capital seen as a source of fuel for the M&A deal-making fire, according to Fitch Ratings.

London Stock Exchange listed, Montpelier Re operated, reinsurance linked Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund, has reported an increase in its net asset value for the first-half of 2014 of approximately 1.0%, after the impact of dividends declared.

Regional reinsurance firms in Asia-Pacific are expected to be able to withstand global competitive pressures, such as increasing reinsurance capacity and pricing pressure, better than peers in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA).

The average return of the insurance-linked securities (ILS), reinsurance linked investment and pure catastrophe bond fund market was slightly improved in July, at 0.40%, but the gap between pure cat bond and funds investing in private ILS is widening.

The hedge fund backed reinsurance mode which seeks to leverage premium inflows as investment capital in hedge fund strategies in an attempt to outperform on the asset-side, is not treated as a new business model by rating agency A.M. Best.

The world’s largest reinsurance firm Munich Re’s U.S. weather derivatives and energy commodities trading unit Munich Re Trading LLC complements the reinsurers core operations and is highly strategic to its parent, according to S&P.

Insurance linked securities (ILS) investment manager Credit Suisse Asset Management has estimated that the insured loss from Sunday’s Napa, California earthquake will come in around the $1.5 billion mark.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s highlights the opportunity for insurance, reinsurance and the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market to work with governments to provide and support sovereign catastrophe and disaster risk financing tools.