Archive for August, 2020

Hurricane Laura analogue storms from the past, so major category 3 to 4 hurricane landfalls that hit similar areas of the Louisiana/Texas border region, show a $0.8 billion to $5.9 billion range of insurance industry losses, according to modelling by RMS.

Hurricane Laura has continued intensifying today, now reaching Category 4 major hurricane status, with sustained winds of 140 mph or higher. Laura is expected to continue strengthening a little more and maintain Cat 4 strength to landfall by forecasters, while they still warn of a potentially “catastrophic” storm surge for the Gulf Coast region.

Catastrophe bonds are still likely to escape the wrath of strengthening hurricane Laura unscathed, according to Zurich based ILS and reinsurance asset manager Plenum Investments.

Just an hour ago, we published a piece asking why acquiring hedging capacity when a major hurricane threat is in the water isn’t easier and as if by magic it transpires that insurtech Tremor Technologies will run a series of industry loss warranty (ILW) auctions this afternoon, U.S. time, which gets much closer to meeting […]

Picture the scene, it’s August 2020 and major hurricane Laura is in the Gulf of Mexico moving over some of the warmest waters on the planet and forecast to intensify into a Category 4 storm before slamming into Louisiana and Texas, with Galveston Bay and Houston still perilously close to the cone of uncertainty.

Demonstrating the robust returns possible in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market currently, through allocations to diversified reinsurance portfolios, Bermuda headquartered ILS fund and investment manager ILS Capital Management said its investors stand to earn higher returns this year.

With hurricane Laura bearing down on the Texas and Louisiana coastline as a strengthening Category 2 storm with winds of over 110 mph, pushing what is being termed a potentially catastrophic storm surge in front of it, the time for last minute hedging arrangements and so-called live cat trading is now, or never.

Wildfires across California continued their destruction of property in the last day, with now upwards of 1,779 buildings destroyed during the season so far, according to some data sources, but firefighters made some progress in further containing some of the key blazes.

Should hurricane Laura generate a low double-digit billion dollar industry loss, of around $12 billion or higher, the looming storm, on top of other recent loss activity, would likely use up re/insurers quarterly catastrophe budgets, analysts said today.

Entry of the so-called tech giants into the insurance and reinsurance market has always been a hot topic and today it’s been announced that a Google unit is entering the employer stop-loss insurance space with the backing and support of reinsurance giant Swiss Re.