Archive for April, 2015

Institutional investors attraction to insurance and reinsurance clearly remains strong, with another deal announced this morning, which will see large pension fund the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) taking a stake in Brit plc.

Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said that they expect AXIS Capital to increase its bid for PartnerRe, after yesterday’s surprise news that Italian investment holdings company EXOR had tabled a $130 per share offer, a 16% premium on the valuation of PartnerRe from the AXIS deal.

Hannover Re has completed the issuance of another LI Re private catastrophe bond (or cat bond lite), a $3.75m LI Re (Series 2015-1), using its Kaith Re Ltd. segregated accounts vehicle, as the reinsurer facilitates another transaction for an unknown sponsor.

The Florida Cabinet’s State Board of Administration and Governor Scott have now approved the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) to buy $1 billion of private reinsurance coverage, from a combination of traditional and collateralized reinsurance.

Interesting news as EXOR, an investment company owned by the Italian Agnelli family (behind Fiat Chrysler), have launched a $6.4 billion counter bid to buy reinsurance firm PartnerRe, gate crashing the merger of AXIS Capital and PartnerRe.

Rewire Holdings LLC, a firm that launched in September 2014 aiming to increase efficiency in the syndication of catastrophe risk to reinsurance and capital markets, has today opened its online ILS and catastrophe bond marketplace to users for the first time.

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) is getting closer to accessing the private reinsurance and risk transfer markets for the first time, as it seeks to better protect itself and take advantage of near-record low reinsurance rates for Florida property catastrophe risks.

More and more investors are continuing to access reinsurance risk through established entities and via the set-up of new vehicles, as hedge fund managers and similar provide investors with increased access to the market, according to Craig Bridgewater of KPMG.

Despite the current market environment being generally positive for primary insurers, the evolution of the reinsurance market highlights several challenges this can create for firms, according to analysts at Moody’s.

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) is set to lower the attachment probability of its $400m Alamo Re Ltd. (Series 2014-1) catastrophe bond at the annual reset, in order to slot the cover it provides between the two tranches of its new Alamo Re Ltd. (Series 2015-1) offering.