Archive for April, 2021

Pricing dynamics in the catastrophe bond market are helping to drive the performance of cat bond funds, despite the negative hit taken back in February due to the US winter storms and the losses that event has driven, insight from Plenum Investments suggests.

The recent £3 billion longevity swap between the AXA UK Group Pension Scheme and reinsurance firm Hannover Re represented a new first for the longevity risk transfer market, a largely non-pensioner deal, which analysts at Jefferies highlight as a win-win transaction for both parties.

As interest in and use of parametric forms of insurance and reinsurance risk transfer continues to increase, broker Willis Towers Watson notes that prices for coverage have been on the rise in the United States, but so too is available parametric capacity.

Agecroft Partners, the hedge fund consulting and marketing specialist, has given reinsurance linked investments, through insurance-linked securities (ILS), a positive outlook, saying that large pension funds are increasingly seeking entry points to this market.

Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc., the Florida headquartered and nationally expansive U.S. property casualty insurer, has pre-announced that it will report $31.4 million of catastrophe and severe weather losses for the first-quarter of 2021.

Global primary insurance carrier and reinsurance company Chubb noted today that an acquisition of rival The Hartford would have been “compelling”, but The Hartford noted in its Q1 results that it actually turned the would-be purchaser down three times.

Greater education around the insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class, coupled with the development of a secondary market and the expansion into new perils, will help make ILS fund participation more attractive for sophisticated retail investors, according to industry experts.

Kettle, a deep-learning and artificial intelligence (AI) focused reinsurtech start-up, has made a key hire as it builds out its reinsurance platform, appointing William Haddrell, formerly of Sompo International, as its Chief Underwriting Officer.

Driving home the importance of climate risk mitigation, resilience building and also the role of insurance or reinsurance in providing climate risk transfer, global reinsurer Swiss Re warns that the world’s economy risks a significant hit as the climate changes.

It’s been reported that insurance and reinsurance broker Aon made a proactive remedy offer to the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division regarding its impending acquisition of Willis Towers Watson (WTW), as it sought to get on the front-foot of negotiations.