Archive for August, 2017

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

The tropical Atlantic is forecast to see activity levels of greater than 130% above average over the next two weeks, according to forecasters from the Colorado State University. The CSU team highlight a number of possible tropical storm or hurricane threats as we approach the peak of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season.

Record levels of activity and growth of insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds and collateralised reinsurance continues to put a strain on reinsurance pricing and some reinsurers are only remaining profitable thanks to low levels of major loss and reliance on reserve releases, according to Fitch Ratings.

Unum’s outstanding Northwind insurance-linked securities (ILS) have ben affirmed, as the performance of the first-of-its-kind deal is now deemed in line with expectations by rating agency Moody’s.

While remediation efforts for the damaged turret on the Kwame Nkrumah FPSO (floating production storage and offloading) operating on the Jubilee oil field, Ghana are well underway and progress being made, this work will mean a further shutdown of production that could escalate insurance and ultimately reinsurance costs.

The CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd., a listed fund vehicle operated by reinsurance and retrocession linked investment manager Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd., has reported a first-half of the year free of major losses and now looks to raise more capital in order to take advantage of opportunities.

Reinsurance brokerage JLT Re has announced the addition of a new Partner in its Bermuda office. Nicolas Bardon joins the firm with a reinsurance, banking and finance background and will work closely with the JLT Re industry loss warranty (ILW) broking team.

Social protection and relief systems are increasingly looking to respond more rapidly to the impacts of weather or natural catastrophes, with forecast-based action an area of innovation being explored. But, for these systems to scale-up, financing is required, with which the ILS market and parametric triggers may be able to assist.

Reinsurance firm Swiss Re has given a preliminary estimate for global economic and insured losses from natural and man-made disasters of just $23 billion for the first-half of 2017, which is down 36% on the prior year and 30% below average. Economic losses are estimated at just $44 billion, down from $117 billion in H1 […]

Aon Securities, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and capital markets arm of insurance and reinsurance broker Aon, reveals that all Aon ILS Indices posted a gain in the second-quarter of 2017, although returns were down when compared with a year earlier.