Archive for April, 2019

Personal lines property insurance rates in California and Florida have jumped in the first-quarter of 2019, which will partly reflect an expectation among primary insurers that they will need to pay more for their reinsurance cover this year.

A new bill proposed in California may cause a restructuring of the financial resources tower of the California Earthquake Authority (CEA), meaning it may purchase roughly $1.3 billion less in reinsurance and catastrophe bond cover next year, but demand is forecast to increase significantly in years to come.

Bermudian reinsurance firm RenaissanceRe has extended the maturity of the remaining $23.3 million of insurance-linked securities (ILS) notes from its Fibonacci Re Ltd. vehicle’s 2017 and 2018 issuances, as loss development continues.

Once again the outlook for reinsurance rates at the mid-year renewal season is clouded and dependent on the appetites of underwriters to deploy more capacity.

Hamilton Re, the Bermuda-based reinsurance arm of Hamilton Insurance Group, has successfully completed a renewal of its collateralized reinsurance sidecar vehicle Turing Re, capitalising the special purpose insurance vehicle with another $65 million of third-party capital.

New long-range hurricane forecasts from the Colorado State University and Accuweather forecasting teams both suggest a 2019 Atlantic hurricane season with a roughly average level of storm activity is most likely.

Aurous Risk Partners, a reinsurance focused managing general agency (MGA) that launched in 2018 with a desire to connect risks with the most suitable capital, has secured its first Lloyd’s energy binder that will be backed by capacity from Credit Suisse ILS’ Arcus Syndicate 1856.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), a major institutional investor with $368.5 billion at the end of last year, had put US $1.225 billion to work in reinsurance-linked and ILS strategies during 2018, including some towards back-up coverages following the 2017 catastrophe loss events.

The subject of reforming the Lloyd’s insurance and reinsurance market, including ideas on modernisation, capital, costs and more, is being treated with more urgency than ever before, as its underwriting remains “structurally unprofitable” analysts say.

Another $100 million tranche of Florida focused property and casualty insurer Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc’s Citrus Re Ltd. catastrophe bond tranches looks to have paid out, as the cat bond note balance went to zero and the extended tranche was allowed to mature.