Archive for January, 2017

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 29th January 2017, 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.

Bermuda saw a flurry of special purpose insurance (SPI) vehicle registrations in December, which took the total registered for catastrophe bond issuance and other collateralised reinsurance structures to seventeen for the full-year 2016.

It’s been confirmed that one of Canada’s largest pension funds, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), is going to contribute $1 billion to the acquisition of insurance and reinsurance group Allied World, alongside Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial.

Given the fact that reinsurance cession rates remain near record lows, thanks to the softened state of the market, it is time for re/insurers to re-examine reinsurance as a form of contingent capital, JLT Re suggests.

The frequency and severity of natural disasters is increasing across Canada and the government must collaborate with the private sector to develop innovative, and effective solutions, says Glenn McGillivray, Managing Director (MD) of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR).

For pension schemes around the world looking to offload their longevity risks, the good news is that the longevity swap structure continues to evolve and options for longevity hedging continue to open up to a wider range of pensions.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets highlighted a good point in a recent report, that the growth of insurance-linked securities (ILS), particularly the increasing market share of collateralised reinsurance, has taken away demand from the traditional market.

Risk modelling firm RMS is aiming for what its parent terms a “major milestone” this Spring, with plans to launch Risk Modeler version 1.0 on its new RMS(one) platform within months.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuance throughout 2016 remained strong in a tough operating landscape. Total market capacity reached a high of $75 billion in 2016, driven by continued investor appetite for increased diversification of the asset class, according to WCMA.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS), pure catastrophe bond and reinsurance-linked investment funds have managed an average return of 5.18% for the full-year 2016, which is up almost a percent from 2015’s 4.24%.