Archive for November, 2016

Reinsurance, catastrophe and weather risk-linked investment fund manager Nephila Capital is set to benefit from a new source of Texas wind insurance risk, as its managing general agency (MGA), Velocity Risk Underwriters LLC. positions itself to take on ex-TWIA homeowners policies.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 20th November 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.

1347 Property Insurance Holdings (PIH) struggled to find adequate pricing and the right level of capacity for its top and drop and aggregate reinsurance contract, leading the firm to look at other methods, outside of the traditional reinsurance space, with catastrophe bonds seen as an option.

Alternative investment specialist, BroadRiver Asset Management, L.P, has successfully raised $366 million from existing and new investors for its life settlement fund, BroadRiver II.

The capitalisation of reinsurance companies won’t be the main driver of ratings in the current soft and challenging market conditions, rather it will be performance as reinsurers struggle with low investment returns, softening rates and diminishing reserve releases, according to A.M. Best Chief Rating Officer Stefan Holzberger.

The recent magnitude 7.8 New Zealand South Island earthquake could end up costing the insurance and reinsurance industry as much as US$3.5 billion, according to risk modelling firm AIR Worldwide.

Property Claim Services (PCS) has provided an update to its estimated loss for the insurance industry from the Fort McMurray, Alberta Canada wildfires, lowering it from C$4.67 billion to C$3.98 billion, which is roughly US$2.96 billion.

Insurance, reinsurance and financial services group Alleghany has estimated its pre-tax loss from hurricane Matthew as being up to $75 million, net of reinsurance and reinstatement premiums.

The loss that will fall to the insurance and reinsurance market due to the damaged turret on the Kwame Nkrumah FPSO (floating production storage and offloading) operating on the Jubilee oil field, Ghana, is set to rise, as the FPSO will remain shutdown to production well into 2017.

According to sources the California Earthquake Authority’s (CEA) latest catastrophe bond offering, the Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2016-1) transaction, could be upsized to as large as $500 million in size with pricing moving towards the upper end of initial guidance.