Archive for October, 2022

Specialty insurance and reinsurance company Fidelis Insurance Holdings Limited is back in the catastrophe bond market with a $100 million or greater target for the new Herbie Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) which is focused on earthquake risks in North America, Artemis has learned.

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund’s (FHCF) actuaries are projecting a $10 billion loss for the Fund after hurricane Ian, with this significant support going to impacted insurance carriers as reinsurance recoveries.

While the World Bank has been a key driving force in the catastrophe bond market for many years, of late its senior leadership has been relatively quiet about the use of cat bonds as a key disaster risk financing and risk transfer option for its sovereign client-base.

AXIS Capital reported its third-quarter 2022 results yesterday, with another decline in reinsurance premiums written as its exit from property reinsurance underwriting takes hold, but a more significant dip in Strategic Capital Partner fee income, which could also be a sign of hurricane Ian’s impacts.

The reinsurance market looks set to undergo further hardening as the January renewals fast-approaches, and with insurance-linked securities (ILS) players struggling to raise capital and reports of deals failing to get done at any price, it could be a truly hard market, according to Brad Adderley, Bermuda Managing Partner, Appleby.

The fourth session at our Artemis London 2022 conference on September 6th featured a keynote speech and a panel discussion, both focused on the potential for cyber risk catastrophe bonds and what the market needs to do for the first cyber cat bond to be issued.

With a “material move” in reinsurance pricing anticipated at the January 2023 renewal season, analysts at J.P. Morgan don’t believe new capital inflows will affect the trajectory of rates this time around.

Another positive signal that the catastrophe bond market may already have fully marked in loss expectations from hurricane Ian, is the fact that on secondary market cat bond pricing sheets, there were many more outstanding bonds that gained in price, than lost any further ground last Friday.

US specialty insurance group Assurant revealed that its losses from hurricane Ian have eroded the lower two layers of its reinsurance tower, with at least $80 million set to be recovered from its panel.

Global insurance and reinsurance group Chubb reported almost $1.2 billion of catastrophe losses for the third-quarter of 2022, with $975 million coming from hurricane Ian alone, while its quarterly data suggests a reliance on reinsurance to help pay its claims.