Archive for October, 2017

Catastrophe risk modelling firm RMS has said that it does not believe that the insurance and reinsurance industry will face any more than $500 million of losses from recent hurricane Nate’s wind and coastal flooding on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond investment manager Fermat Capital Management LLC has recruited Joanna Syroka, who previously worked for the African Risk Capacity (ARC), to a business development role focused on accessing new opportunities to narrow the insurance protection gap.

California wildfires have put billions of dollars of property at risk and spread further over the weekend as strong winds and dry weather fanned flames. Latest estimates suggest that at least 5,700 structures, largely homes, have been completely destroyed.

Hurricane Ophelia, having become the furthest east storm to reach major Category 3 status, is tracking towards Ireland and threatens a landfall in the south-west of the country as a strong extra-tropical storm which hurricane wind gusts, a damaging storm surge and heavy rainfall.

The United Kingdom’s insurance-linked securities (ILS) and risk transformation regulations were finally laid formally before the Parliament yesterday, one of the final steps required before they can be utilised by any ILS managers or reinsurers looking to transact collateralised reinsurance in the country.

The third of the Bermudian insurance and reinsurance firms to announce its third-quarter catastrophe losses yesterday was Arch Capital Group Ltd., which said that it expects to suffer up to $345 million of impact from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the Mexican earthquakes and other Q3 events around the globe.

The retrocession market has helped Bermudian re/insurer AXIS Capital to reduce its losses from third-quarter catastrophe events, including hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as the Mexico earthquakes, to $578 million, with the firm set to claim $136 million back from retrocessionaires.

Bermudian reinsurance firm Everest Re has estimated third-quarter catastrophe losses from hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and the Mexico earthquakes of $1.2 billion pretax, after reinsurance and reinstatement premiums, but its alternative capital vehicle Mt. Logan Re and retrocession helps to soften the overall impact.

Global financial services ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s (S&P), expects the growth of alternative reinsurance capital to outpace growth in the traditional market as it looks to expand outside of the property catastrophe space and earnings headwinds persist.

The UK rules on insurance-linked securities (ILS) were supposed to have come before the Parliament in late September, but this has been delayed by the political conference season and as a result there is a fear that the regulation may not be finalised soon enough for any January renewal ILS deals to be transacted.