Archive for November, 2017

GC Securities, the capital markets and insurance-linked securities (ILS) arm of reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter, has hired a new Assistant Vice President for ILS Structuring & Origination to its team, continuing its expansion.

The cost of entering into longevity risk transfer and reinsurance arrangements is at a historical low, according to Amy Kessler, Head of Longevity Risk Transfer at Prudential Financial, as lower-than-expected longevity improvements feed through into the cost of capacity.

The market should not get too excited over the prospects of new capital flowing in following the heavy third-quarter losses, according to Hiscox CEO Bronek Masojada who says that rather than a “wall of capital” flooding in, we should only expect to see a “trickle of alternative capital.”

Wildfires in California and Portugal have made October the most costly month for that peril for the insurance and reinsurance industry, with around $8.2 billion in losses for the sector, according to Aon Benfield’s Impact Forecasting unit.

With the overall insurance and reinsurance industry facing losses as high as $100 billion from recent hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as other third-quarter catastrophe events, the experience will provide the ILS market with a chance to “define the viability and effectiveness of the 144A product,” says David Priebe of Guy Carpenter.

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has upgraded the ratings for all tranches of Aetna’s Vitality Re V Ltd. and Vitality Re VI Ltd. insurance-linked securities (ILS) deals, following a lower-than-expected impact from the suspension of the industry-wide health insurer fee (HIF).

For large traditional reinsurance firms, like Everest Re, there are four main responses to the challenging and softened marketplace, or perhaps what could be called levers for reinsurance success. Pulling the right levers could prepare companies for a new reinsurance world order, pulling the wrong one could see them doomed to failure.

Alize Ltd., a new actuarial and underwriting services firm has been launched in Bermuda by managing director Brian Gulbransen, previously of ILS Capital Management and Capsicum Re, with a goal of assisting brokers and intermediaries with reinsurance and retrocession placements.

The catastrophe bond market has continued to trade through the recent losses, with activity in the secondary market relatively brisk in October 2017 and signs beginning to emerge that pricing uncertainty is gradually coming off, which combined with new issuance should help to stimulate more liquidity over the coming months.

Dennis Kessler, the CEO of French reinsurance company SCOR, said that it’s currently not possible to know how much influence insurance-linked investors and ILS capacity will have at the key January 1st 2018 renewal season, saying that the market will just have to wait and see.