Archive for August, 2016

Marsh & McLennan President & CEO Dan Glaser said it plainly during the insurance, reinsurance broking and advisory giants Q2 earnings call. In a soft market insurance and reinsurance firms are likely to keep underwriting even when returns are below their cost-of-capital.

Once again, July saw very strong demand for catastrophe bond investments with the secondary market feeling the effects of demand outstripping supply of new issuance, resulting in further price rises and an active cat bond secondary trading market.

To combat the pressure from challenges facing the global reinsurance industry, as competition, the low interest rate environment and headwinds limit growth & erode returns, participants should look to partnerships and innovation as a way to stimulate demand.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 14th August 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.

The uncorrelated and diversifying benefits of investing in insurance-linked securities (ILS) continues to broaden the reach of the asset class, as registered investment advisers (RIA) become the latest to show increasing interest in the asset class, according to a recent article by Institutional Investor.

Specialist insurance linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investments manager Securis Investment Partners has hired Raphael Rayees, previously at Aon Securities in London, to assist with managing its catastrophe bond portfolio.

Bermudian specialist collateralized reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) start-up Sequant Re is set to take another injection of cash from its largest backer Premier Diversified Holdings Inc. (PDH), as Premier aims to increase its stake.

The CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd. reported a 4.86% return in the first-half of 2016, up on the prior-year despite higher catastrophe loss activity, demonstrating the “highly diversified and significantly de-risked 2016 portfolio.”

The U.S. NOAA continues to push for a more active 2016 Atlantic Tropical Storm and Hurricane Season, increasing its forecast in an update yesterday and saying that the ending of El Niño, possible onset of La Niña, weaker vertical wind shear and trade winds, all suggest the most active season since 2012.

The results of many of the insurance and reinsurance industries leading players, over the first-half of 2016, show that one response to a challenging, competitive and softening market, is to try to spend your way out of it.