Archive for July, 2019

Awareness of the benefits of weather risk transfer is growing in Australia and transactions like the recent long-term GrainCorp weather hedge is challenging the perceptions of agriculture-focused public companies, according to brokerage, Risk Solutions International Pty Ltd (RSI).

After having reported further loss creep that dented the net asset value’s of its listed retrocessional reinsurance fund shares in May, the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund shows that premiums are still set to flow as its share classes returned up to 1.3% in June.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 21st July 2019, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

Bermuda-based re/insurer Arch Capital Group Ltd. is back in the capital markets with the largest mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction seen to-date, a $701 million Bellemeade Re 2019-3 Ltd. that also features the first-ever triple-A rated tranche of mortgage insurance-linked notes.

Primary players Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. and United Insurance Holdings (UPC Insurance) have reported their Q2 2019 catastrophe losses, with Heritage experiencing higher impacts than the prior year, while United (UPC) has reported in-line current year impacts but further loss creep from 2018.

Hurricane Barry estimates are coming in fact now, with the latest from Corelogic suggesting that the insured wind and flood loss will be from $300 million to as much as $600 million, excluding any claims for the NFIP.

Estera, a global provider of funds, corporate and trust services and an active service provider to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance markets, has been acquired and will combine with corporate administration and fiduciary service provider Ocorian.

Demonstrating the recovery that is underway in insurance-linked securities (ILS) market returns, as the loss creep from prior year events begins to tail off, the listed Blue Capital Alternative Income Fund has delivered a 3.6% year-to-date return, 2.9% just in Q2.

Munich Re has bucked the expected trend for quarterly reporting from the major global insurance and reinsurance firms, pre-announcing an expectation of around €1 billion of profit for the second-quarter, which is far above analysts estimates.

Insurance industry loss estimates from recent hurricane Barry are not expected to exceed $500 million, both to private and public markets, with the NFIP set to take roughly half the total and a likelihood that primary insurers will bear the brunt, with little falling to reinsurance carriers.