Archive for April, 2015

The Benu Capital Limited extreme mortality catastrophe bond, which is being brought to market on behalf of sponsoring insurer AXA Global Life, looks like it may upsize due to investor demand while the pricing indication has moved towards the upper end of guidance.

With the low rate environment set to continue in the global reinsurance space, amplified by a lack of major catastrophes and an abundance of capacity, Europe’s reinsurers are increasingly turning to insurance-linked securities (ILS) and alternative capital, according to A.M. Best.

Risk modelling firm RMS has issued an insurance industry loss estimate for European windstorm Niklas, a late-season storm that struck northern Europe at the end of March causing significant damage across a number of countries, but with Germany taking the brunt.

CCRIF SPC (formerly the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility) has signed a memorandum of understanding with COSEFIN to allow Central American countries to join the sovereign catastrophe risk insurance pool. Nicaragua will be the first country to join.

New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management, a provider of mutual fund investments across a variety of beta focused alternative risk exposures including reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS), has hired three senior execs from leading banks recently.

A new practice team at reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter will focus exclusively on the catastrophe risk transfer needs of government agencies and entities. The Public Sector Specialty Practice will provide solutions aiming to relieve the cost of catastrophes for these entities.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 19th April 2015, 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.

Global reinsurance firm Munich Re, the largest reinsurer in the world, said in its latest catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities market report that it believes total Q2 2015 cat bond issuance could be “north of $3bn.”

The rise of alternative asset classes combined with the decoupling of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and traditional reinsurance market pricing, are key contributing factors to the current state of the market, according to Aon Benfield Securities Paul Schultz.

Tony Ursano is joining reinsurance broker and risk capital advisory TigerRisk Partners LLC as President, in a role expected to help TigerRisk continue on its path as a capital agnostic intermediary with an integrated reinsurance and capital markets approach.