Archive for January, 2016

Liquidity in the secondary market for catastrophe bonds rose in December, as an active period of primary cat bond issuance combined with the approach of the key January reinsurance renewals, stimulated investor portfolio rebalancing.

During a recent London market trip with management from insurers, reinsurers, and the Lloyd’s of London market, RBC Capital Markets heard reports of Lloyd’s insurers taking advantage of the soft reinsurance landscape at the key January 1st renewals.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 17th January 2016, 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.

As the convergence of global reinsurance and capital markets continues apace, some traditional reinsurers are adapting to become the “gatekeepers of insurance risk,” according to A.M. Best, making being agnostic to form of underwriting capital used key.

Canadian province Manitoba has established a task force to explore the use of catastrophe insurance solutions in light of a rise in adverse weather events negatively impacting its agricultural sector, according to a recently published report.

The recent spate of natural catastrophes and severe weather events in Australia are set to cost the insurance and perhaps reinsurance industry over AUD $515 million (USD $355m+), according to the Insurance Council of Australia.

Capital market investors, through insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers and other collateralized underwriters of reinsurance risks, now provide more than 50% of global catastrophe retrocession capacity, according to Guy Carpenter.

The UK flooding caused by storm Desmond at the beginning of December is estimated to have caused £717 million ($1.035 billion or €950m) of insurance, and perhaps reinsurance, industry losses, according to PERILS AG.

Hurricane Alex has formed in the Atlantic, a very rare occurrence of a sub-tropical storm which has reached hurricane strength in January. Hurricane Alex currently has 85mph sustained winds and is tracking north towards the Azores.

Global reinsurance company Munich Re said today that it has increased its use of the capital markets as a source of efficient capital for risk transfer and retrocession, citing the coverage provided by its Eden Re II sidecar renewal and recent Queen Street cat bond as “valuable”.