Archive for May, 2023

If one were to look back at historical data on hurricane season years that feature a relatively strong El Niño and at the same time very warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST’s), this might suggest a chance of fewer hurricane landfalls in the United States, and as a result fewer insurance and reinsurance market losses.

PERILS AG has hiked its insurance and reinsurance market industry loss estimate for the recent Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence that struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023 by a significant 32%, with the estimate now at almost US $4.5 billion.

Broking giant Aon is doubling-down on the application of reinsurance risk management techniques for its corporate client base, and as this becomes a key strategic angle for the company it has made Andy Marcell the CEO of Risk Capital, to oversee reinsurance, commercial risk and advanced analytics capabilities at the company.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) capital providers need to see “proof-points” of the market delivering on its promises and ultimately returns, before any meaningful inflows return to the collateralised reinsurance side of the ILS market, Hiscox Group CEO Aki Hussain explained today.

US primary insurer Allstate has brought down the top of its Nationwide excess catastrophe reinsurance tower a little, at its latest renewal, with the program now only extending to $6.924 billion of losses, compared to $7.01 billion at the end of 2022.

GAM Holding AG, the parent company to global asset manager GAM Investments, is to be acquired by specialist fund management group Liontrust, with all of its investment funds set to be rebranded, which will presumably include its large GAM Star Cat Bond Fund and other ILS strategies it manages.

The Florida insurance and reinsurance marketplace is “probably better” after the legislative changes that have occurred, although how impactful they will be remains uncertain and Swiss Re’s appetite for risk in the state sounds unlikely to increase significantly, according to comments by CFO John Dacey this morning.

In reporting its results this morning, Hiscox Group disclosed that its Hiscox ILS business experienced $148.4 million in net outflows of capital during the first-quarter of 2023, which the company said was “consistent with our expectations of a general trend in the sector.”

U.S. primary insurer Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company is now seeking to double the size of its new catastrophe bond, with its target for the deal now lifted to $300 million of multi-peril US catastrophe reinsurance, from this Aquila Re I Ltd. (Series 2023-1) transaction.

Global reinsurance giant Swiss Re has continued to expand its business in the current hard market environment, reporting today that it has underwritten 5% more business in volume terms, at 19% higher prices on average, during the April renewal season.