Archive for April, 2018

The $100 million Pelican IV Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) catastrophe bond, the latest issuance from residual market insurer Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, has now been priced with the coupon settling at the low-end of initial guidance.

Transatlantic Holdings, the parent to Transatlantic Reinsurance (or TransRe), is set to sponsor its first catastrophe bond transaction this year, with the launch to investors of a $200 million Bowline Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) deal, that will provide the firm with collateralized multi-peril reinsurance coverage.

Financial services, insurance and reinsurance giant Markel Corporation has reported a significant 84% year-on-year jump in investment management fees generated by the reinsurance and retrocession linked ILS investment activities of its specialist manager Markel CATCo Investment Management.

There is some divergence between forecasts for the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, with some forecasters opting for above average levels of storm activity, while others like the Weather Company are opting for something closer to an average season.

U.S. primary insurance giant Travelers has bucked the trend, to a degree, in announcing what its CEO calls an “unusually high” level of catastrophe losses in the first-quarter of 2018, reporting $354 million of losses net of reinsurance for the period.

Swedish state sector pension fund AP3 was one investor whose ILS portfolio stood up to the impacts of the 2017 catastrophe events relatively well, as the pension investor reported a 2.9% return for its investments across the insurance and reinsurance linked investments space.

Parametric and weather index insurance specialist Meteo Protect has successfully renewed the arrangement that provides Spanish olive farmers and producers with parametric risk transfer to enhance their resilience to weather and climate-related risks.

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re yesterday came out with a forecast for its first-quarter 2018, saying that it expects to achieve a consolidated result for the period of over €800 million, which would be the most profitable start to the year the company has experienced since 2014.

According to the latest official World Health Organisation (WHO) data, the spread of the recent Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria has slowed and as a result the number of confirmed cases has risen much more slowly in recent weeks, reducing the risk posed to investors in the World Bank’s pandemic swaps and catastrophe bonds.

Stock exchange listed ILS and collateralized reinsurance investment strategy the Blue Capital Alternative Income Fund, suffered a -2.62% loss in March 2018, as hurricane Irma loss estimates were increased by counterparties, a factor that has negatively affected a number of ILS funds for the month.