Archive for May, 2018

Insurance and reinsurance broking giant Aon has named John English as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the firms Captive & Insurance Management business, a unit that includes teams looking after numerous insurance-linked securities (ILS) structures and vehicles.

The world of hedge funds and alternative investment strategies is moving fast and the Chief Investment Officer of massive A$166 billion Australian sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, is happiest allocating to what he terms Hedge Funds 2.0, a categorisation that ILS and reinsurance fits into.

According to John Forney, the CEO of United Insurance Holdings (UPC Insurance), the firms recently completed $3.1 billion reinsurance program featured a “heavy dose of collateralized limit” and at the same time more capital market investors were attracted to invest in its latest Armor Re II Ltd. catastrophe bond.

In preparing for its acquisition by French insurance giant AXA, Bermudian insurance and reinsurance firm XL Group has laid out some of the managerial changes to expect during the transition, but has highlighted that responsibility for ceded reinsurance and alternative capital will remain with Mark van Zanden.

The latest catastrophe bond from U.S. property & casualty insurance giant Travelers, Long Point Re III Ltd. (Series 2018-1), is set to reach the increased target size of $500 million thanks to appetite from investors we understand, so will provide the firm with its largest yet source of capital markets backed multi-peril reinsurance capacity.

The catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market has reached a new milestone, as strong demand from investors and sponsors has taken 2018 issuance to near $7 billion already, lifting total cumulative issuance since the market began passed the $100 billion mark, according to Artemis’ data on the market.

Tangency Capital Ltd., a recently launched insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment venture that has a focus on quota shares, has raised its first $50 million from a seed investor and begun to deploy the capital following its “differentiated” quota share focused investment strategy.

Broker Aon said this morning that the “longevity swap market is back in business” after a hiatus in activity over recent months, with a record year expected as evidenced by the recent completion of a £2 billion longevity swap and reinsurance deal involving insurer Zurich and the UK’s National Grid pension fund.

Boutique alternative investment specialist Hatteras Funds is set to launch a new insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investment mutual fund arranged as an interval structure, becoming the latest company to offer reinsurance-linked investments to advisors and clients.

French headquartered global reinsurance firm SCOR has returned to the capital market for its first catastrophe bond in over two years and has switched its preferred ILS domicile to the UK, leveraging the new regulatory regime there to sponsor a $300 million Atlas Capital UK 2018 PLC (Series 2018 ISPV 1) transaction.