Archive for March, 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 27th 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.

London-based Pension Insurance Corp. (PIC) increased the volume of longevity exposure it reinsured in 2015 to £3.8 billion, supporting the growing trend of specialist pension insurers utilising longevity reinsurance capacity to manage their exposures.

The United States has suffered another week of severe weather which looks set to result in another billion dollar plus toll for the economy and hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for insurance and reinsurance firms, according to Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting unit.

Japanese primary insurance group Sompo Japan and Nipponkoa’s (SJNK) new Aozora Re Ltd. (Series 2016-1) catastrophe bond has now priced at the lowest-end of the initial guidance and achieving the upsized $220m of reinsurance protection for the firm.

Brokers face increasing pressures, with revenue and profitability likely to continue to be impacted due to the softening reinsurance market environment, but one bright spot could be the growing alternative markets according to rating agency Fitch, while another could be technology.

John Elkann, Chairman and CEO of diversified Italian investment holding company EXOR S.p.A has been appointed Chairman of EXOR’s newly acquired reinsurance operation PartnerRe’s Board of Directors. Also Emmanuel Clarke, President of PartnerRe Ltd., has been named President and CEO.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has attributed the continued strong performance of global reinsurers in 2015 to the benign catastrophe loss environment and reserve releases, citing that these factors are masking true business conditions, which are to remain challenging and competitive in 2016.

The tragic events in Brussels, Belgium this week, when more than 30 people were killed by terrorist bombings at the city’s airport and metro, are unlikely to result in significant insurance or reinsurance impact, but demonstrate the lack of coverage for the terrorism-related economic exposure.

Don Mango, Vice Chairman, Enterprise Analytics at Guy Carpenter has stressed the importance of third-party risk models in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, citing the added liquidity it brings to the market.

The insurance and reinsurance industry loss from the flooding that struck the UK in December 2015 and early January 2016 is now estimated at £1.24 billion ($1.75bn) as the estimate for storms Eva – Frank rises 10%, according to PERILS AG.