Archive for October, 2014

Analysis from Alliance Bernstein researchers shows that the property and casualty insurance sector needs to continue to take rate increases of between 5% and 10%, if it is to earn its cost of capital in the aggregate, which likely also applies to reinsurance.

Specialist Bermuda-headquartered insurance-linked securities management, servicing, transformation and fronting firm Horseshoe Group has had its license to operate in Gibraltar approved, meaning Gibraltar is now open for ILS business.

Demonstrating that nobody is immune to reinsurance market pricing trends, as the softening witnessed in recent months deepens and is expected to be a major feature of the upcoming January renewals, S&P has revised its outlook on Lloyd’s to stable.

The current trend towards growth of multi-year reinsurance deals, as heightened competition pushes reinsurers to offer coverage enhancements to clients, could indicate a weakening of reinsurance underwriting standards, warns Standard & Poor’s.

Tropical storm Gonzalo, the seventh named storm of the 2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season, has formed to the east of the Leeward islands and is expected to become a hurricane in the coming days. The forecast models do not expect any U.S. threat to emerge from this storm.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 12th October 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.

Tropical storm Fay is passing very close to Bermuda this morning, bringing maximum sustained winds of 60mph to 70mph and heavy rains. Meanwhile conditions for tropical storm development in the Atlantic are hotting up.

The mix of investors accessing returns from catastrophe reinsurance business and the insurance-linked securities asset class, through investment allocations to catastrophe bonds, has changed in the past year, according to Aon Benfield’s latest data.

The UK government’s planned state-backed flood reinsurance pool, Flood Re, has published a tender for retrocessional reinsurance broker services, detailing that it is open to alternative risk transfer or alternative (capital) market solutions.

Insurance and reinsurance broking power house Aon told insurers that they have two stark choices as the re/insurance industry moves into the next stage of its development. Innovate or perish, a message that definitely applies to reinsurance as well.