Archive for November, 2014

The insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, consisting of instruments such as insurance-linked funds, catastrophe bonds, sidecars and other fully-collateralized reinsurance structures, is set to continue to evolve in coming years, according to market participants.

In another sign that investors will not keep lowering the relative returns on catastrophe bonds the Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2014-1) cat bond, sponsored by the California Earthquake Authority, has been priced above the original mid-point.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 16th November 2014, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

The World Bank is exploring potential new transactions as part of its Capital-at-Risk Notes Program, where it issues catastrophe bonds on behalf of sovereign entities. The Bank is also considering ways to use the facility to provide health risk transfer as well.

Wilmington Trust has hired two insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance collateral experts, both previously with Wells Fargo, as it seeks to grow the firm’s insurance and reinsurance related trust business.

For Bermudian reinsurance firm RenaissanceRe, ensuring there is alignment between itself and its own balance-sheet capital, with its partner provided and third-party investor ILS capital, is imperative to the companies continued success, according to its CEO.

Bermuda-based Maiden Holdings, a company that provides non-catastrophic specialty property & casualty reinsurance products through a range of subsidiaries, is creating an innovative offering with a blended collateralized reinsurance and debt approach.

In a clear demonstration of the maturation of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, participants at the ILS Bermuda Convergence 2014 event in Bermuda this week called for it to move beyond being considered an alternative to reinsurance.

Paul Jardine, the Group COO of insurance and reinsurance business Catlin Group, said that as the firm increasingly underwrites business against ILS and third-party capital he could foresee it becoming as much as 30% of the Catlin business.

Specialty insurance and reinsurance company Lancashire Holdings expects to see increasing demand for products from its third-party reinsurance capital unit Kinesis Capital Management at the January renewals and beyond.