Archive for September, 2018

According to the respondents of our first global reinsurance market survey, price is set to be the most important factor in their decisions on reinsurance counterparts’ at the key January 2019 renewal season, suggesting competition will be high.

Frank Majors of Nephila Capital, John Seo of Fermat Capital Management and Tom Johansmeyer of PCS have been revealed as the first confirmed speakers for our February 1st 2019 insurance-linked securities (ILS) conference in New York, Artemis ILS NYC 2019.

A newly established start-up that will specialise in underwriting direct & facultative (D&F) property risks for the world’s top two thousand global companies is aiming to bring ILS investors along for the ride as supporting capacity.

Collateralised reinsurance markets that underwrote a portion of RSA Insurance Group’s three-year aggregate reinsurance tower renewal this year are now on the hook for future losses, after the insurer said its retention had been reached.

Typhoon Trami will be the latest storm this typhoon season to impact Japan, as the Category 3 equivalent typhoon heads for the Ryukyu islands and Okinawa, after which it will hit the Japanese mainland.

The World Bank has approved a $2.5 million grant that will pay the Republic of the Marshall Islands premiums for parametric disaster insurance coverage under the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Finance Initiative (PCRAFI).

The World Bank’s Pacific Alliance cat bond and more recent FEMA-sponsored FloodSmart Re issuance are good examples of new perils and sponsors coming into the market and more is to come, according to Paul Schultz, CEO of Aon Securities.

Reinsurance giant Munich Re is planning to grow its business significantly in the United States, targeting regional accounts as a lever for growth but at the same time planning to maintain its conservative risk profile, keeping catastrophe risks in-line with the size of its balance-sheet.

Recent merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, including Markel Corporations planned acquisition of ILS specialist Nephila Capital, show that major re/insurers are increasingly keen to put capital markets capacity and ILS techniques to work in underwriting shorter-tailed primary lines of business.

The issues of under-insurance and the disaster insurance protection gap means people lack financial support after catastrophes strike and if the state always has to intervene after the loss event, perhaps the state itself should be buying risk transfer protection, according to Christian Mumenthaler, CEO of Swiss Re.