Archive for February, 2018

As insurance and reinsurance specialist XL Group increased its use of alternative capital to $3 billion around the renewals, it did so by leveraging its ILS fund manager New Ocean Capital Management, as well as through the addition of a new property quota share deal with third-party capital partners.

Argo Group is making a strategic shift to originate more risks for investors, as the company finds increasing interest from third-parties in accessing the returns of the re/insurers underwriting performance, according to CEO Mark E. Watson III.

There is evidence that claims from the New Zealand earthquakes continue to impact insurers and be passed on to reinsurance capital as a result, with IAG and Suncorp both reporting more claims coming in from Canterbury and Kaikoura quake events.

Global specialty insurance and reinsurance company Brit Ltd’s new open-ended collateralised reinsurance fund vehicle raised $102.5 million from investors for the 2018 underwriting year, which the firm called “the next step in Brit’s strategy to build long term relationships with the capital markets.”

In an interview with A.M. BestTV at Artemis’ second ILS conference in New York City, PCS Assistant Vice President (AVP), Tom Johansmeyer, discussed the potential for the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market to expand further into the cyber space, after proving its worth in 2017.

The acquisition of Bermudian reinsurance group Validus Holdings, Ltd. by primary insurance giant American International Group, Inc. (AIG) will provide the AlphaCat Managers ILS investment team with access to a much deeper and broader universe of insurance risk, the unit believes.

The improved rate environment meant that specialty insurance and reinsurance player Lancashire Holdings took the opportunity to increase the amount of limit sold by third-party capital vehicle Kinesis Capital Management by roughly 30% at the renewals, according to CEO Alex Maloney.

Australian primary insurer Suncorp is preparing itself for higher losses and more volatile results due to climate change, according to its CEO, as losses from a hailstorm in Victoria in December and other severe weather events reduced its profits for the half-year.

MultiStrat continues to close new casualty linked securities (CLS) transactions, with another deal announced this week taking the total capital invested in these unique casualty ILS deals to $60 million, covering estimated premiums of $230 million.

Third-party collateralized reinsurance capital unit Kinesis Capital Management displayed a resilient set of results in the fourth-quarter of 2017 for parent specialty insurance and reinsurance group Lancashire Holdings Limited and after the challenging year, CEO Alex Maloney feels the market has turned a corner.