Archive for September, 2014

An interesting initiative which could result in an increased understanding of disaster exposures and need for risk transfer as a result, is a partnership between risk modeller RMS and 100 Resilient Cities — Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC).

The London Stock Exchange listed shares of the DCG Iris London-listed insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund have been suspended from trading as an extraordinary general meeting takes place this morning to decide on the funds winding up.

Insurance and reinsurance rating agency A.M. Best has now published the final version of its insurance-linked securities (ILS) market focused criteria report titled “Rating Reinsurance/Insurance Transformer Vehicles.”

Nephila Capital, the largest asset manager providing investments in natural catastrophe and weather risk, has provided the risk transfer capacity for a wind variability hedge for a project aiming to be New York State’s first community owned wind farm.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about whether pension funds would be among the first investors to lose their attraction to the current market environment of lower reinsurance and catastrophe bond pricing by turning heel and exiting the sector.

According to a new report, global reinsurance capital plays a key role in absorbing the impact of disasters, by providing predictable financial relief and strengthening societal resilience. We would add that ILS capital and catastrophe bonds do the same.

The Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) has hit another milestone in terms of insurance-linked listings of catastrophe bonds, ILS and insurance linked investment funds on the exchange, hitting 100 listings amounting to over $13 billion.

Catastrophe bonds as a tool for financing the risk of climate change is set to become reality as the African Risk Capacity (ARC) announces the launch of the Extreme Climate Facility (XCF), a multi-year funding mechanism that will issue climate change cat bonds.

Ratings agency Fitch Ratings warns that the reinsurers face a ‘potentially permanent erosion of profit margins for reinsurance products‘ due to the impact of alternative capital and insurance-linked securities (ILS) on their core business.

The focus of the catastrophe bond market’s exposure to hurricane Odile has been on the MultiCat Mexico 2012 deal, which is clearly at risk of loss as we’ve explained, but there are actually two other cat bonds with Mexican hurricane exposure.