Archive for March, 2016

In line with the previous two months U.S. commercial P&C rates remain down 4% year-on-year in February, as low volumes contributed to little movement in rates across the majority of business lines, according to recent commentary from MarketScout, and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW).

Pool Re, the UK’s government backed mutual terrorism reinsurer, has not yet included any ILS fund capacity or collateralised reinsurance within its retrocession program, which grew to £1.95 billion this year, but told Artemis that it remains open to including capital markets coverage in future.

The use of longevity hedging instruments, such as swaps and reinsurance, is expected to grow in 2016, with longevity risk increasingly on the agenda for pension funds, while reinsurer appetite for assuming longevity risks remains strong, according to Willis Towers Watson.

Reinsurance and retrocession linked investment and fund manager Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd. has released a portion of side pocket investments set up in December 2015 for potential exposure to the UK floods and U.S. severe convective storms.

London headquartered specialist insurance linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investments manager Securis Investment Partners has launched the Securis Catastrophe Bond Fund, a sub-fund of Northill Global Funds ICAV.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 6th March 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.

According to an update from the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX) a $50.2m private catastrophe bond transaction issued through the Kane SAC Limited Note Program was redeemed early in January and has now been delisted from the exchange.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley have predicted further, albeit slower, reinsurance rate declines at mid-year as market headwinds persist. However, the firm does highlight an opportunity for insurers and reinsurers created by the flurry of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity witnessed in 2015.

Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc., Florida headquartered parent to Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance, has reduced its reliance on using the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) thanks to the successful completion of its latest catastrophe bond, Citrus Re Ltd. (Series 2016-1).

PERILS AG, provider of industry-wide European catastrophe exposure, industry loss data and indices, has lowered its estimate of insurance or reinsurance market losses from the UK flooding caused by storm Desmond at the beginning of December 2015 to £662m ($940m).