Archive for December, 2020

Following the news that Guernsey based, Credit Suisse Insurance Linked Strategies supported reinsurance firms Kelvin Re and Humboldt Re are to cease underwriting new business, rating agency AM Best has placed their ratings under review with negative implications.

In light of a marketplace that had slowed its growth trajectory somewhat in recent years, Fitch has underlined the need for a sustained inflow of new sponsors to drive a more dynamic, growing catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) sector.

The two Guernsey domiciled, rated reinsurance carriers managed by and backed by capital from the Credit Suisse Insurance Linked Strategies Ltd. team, Kelvin Re and Humboldt Re, are not renewing any business this January and will stop writing.

A new set of guidance on the treatment of passive foreign investment companies (PFICs) published at the end of last week by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Department of the Treasury has been modified so that the active conduct test excludes insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds, as well as other ILS and reinsurance securitization structures.

Improved reinsurance market pricing is attracting significant sums of capital, with the latest estimate from broker Willis Re being that $19 billion has already been raised since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and another $3 billion of capital raises are underway.

Having been acquired by retail insurance agency network Acrisure LLC in 2018, Beach & Associates, the specialist insurance and reinsurance broker, has now been rebranded as Acrisure Re and Acrisure London Wholesale.

Lockton Re, the reinsurance business of the privately held independent global broking giant, has integrated reinsurance marketplace functionality from Tremor Technologies as part of its client offering.

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re laid out ambitious plans for continued growth in property and casualty reinsurance, saying that it expects rate hardening will continue for at least a couple of years, “despite alternative capital” which the company clearly sees as a threat to market fundamentals.

The commercial insurance marketplace in the United States continued to harden during the third-quarter of the year, with the latest analysis from broker Willis Towers Watson stating that property rates continued to accelerate during the period.

During its investor day yesterday, senior executives from Arch Capital, the Bermuda headquartered specialty insurance and reinsurance group, explained that third-party sources of capital and its insurance-linked securities (ILS) platform are key to future growth opportunities.