Archive for April, 2020

While global reinsurance capital grew strongly again in 2019 the underlying results of the traditional reinsurance market remain less impressive, with the return on equity (RoE) of a subset of the market declining further and falling well below the industry’s cost of capital, broker Willis Re said today.

The second-quarter of 2020 is expected to see strong issuance of new catastrophe bonds and related insurance-linked securities, despite some transactions being postponed due to uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic, Aon Securities has said.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 26th April 2020, 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.

Senior insurance and reinsurance industry executives Evan Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of Chubb, and John Neal, CEO of Lloyd’s of London, both agree that the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus could result in the largest industry loss for the sector in history.

Analysts from investment bank UBS have added 50% to their estimate for the eventual insurance and reinsurance industry loss from the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, lifting the top-end of the range to $60 billion.

The United States has experienced a vigorous and deadly start to the convective storm and tornado season in 2020, with five billion-dollar economic loss events caused by the peril already this year, according to Aon’s Impact Forecasting unit.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) has returned to the catastrophe bond market for the first time this year, seeking to add at least $400 million of earthquake reinsurance protection with a Sutter Re Ltd. (Series 20201- & 2020-2) issuance.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors may look more favourably on the catastrophe bond in future, as its relative contract certainty compared to some collateralised reinsurance and retrocession structures means they are less likely to be impacted by unexpected losses from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Global insurance and reinsurance group Everest Re has warned the market that it is reserving for a potential $150 million hit to its business from losses due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

For the second Artemis Live audio and video interview I was delighted to speak with Frank Majors, co-CEO and President of Nephila Holdings, and a Director of insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund manager Nephila Capital.