Archive for March, 2019

Insurance and reinsurance market losses from the Townsville area flooding in the state of Queensland, Australia have risen further, with the Insurance Council now pegging total claims at A$1.04 billion (around US $740m).

French reinsurance company SCOR has re-organised some of the leadership in its property and casualty underwriting division, SCOR Global P&C, including naming Michel Blanc as CEO of the Reinsurance division.

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re has lifted its profit target for 2019, with growth, as well as savings and efficiencies across both reinsurance and insurance businesses expected to help drive higher returns for its shareholders.

FEMA has returned to the capital markets and ILS investors with a $300 million FloodSmart Re Ltd. (Series 2019-1), seeking support for its second flood catastrophe bond to transfer risk from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Welcome to the Artemis ILS New York 2019 conference report, which provides insight into some of the debates that took place between speakers and attendees during Artemis’ third event in the city.

Aggregated insured claims data for hurricane Michael now totals over $6 billion, an increase of roughly 10% since early February and there is further for the tally to rise with settlement of commercial property claims lagging behind.

Despite the consecutive year’s of major catastrophe losses, the expectation is that third-party capital and ILS players will maintain their influence over Florida market reinsurance renewals in June.

Yesterday, a big change in the way risk is priced under the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was announced, with a shift to fully risk based pricing of flood insurance potentially set to be a driver of more flood risk into private reinsurance and risk markets.

The insurance and reinsurance market remains “fundamentally cyclical” in nature and while price increases may not be as significant as a decade ago, Lancashire Holdings CEO Alex Maloney says rates have now lifted off the bottom of the cycle.

In 2018 when global investors suffered as markets fell and equities in many cases failed to perform, investments in some asset classes that had been promoted as diversifying failed to deliver on their promise, Natixis Investment Managers said.