Archive for May, 2023

The New Zealand Earthquake Commission, or Toka Tū Ake EQC, has now priced its debut catastrophe bond issuance, with the Totara Re Pte. Ltd. (Series 2023-1) deal set to provide the insurer a NZ $225 million source of collateralized and multi-year reinsurance protection.

The pace of catastrophe bond issuance has continued to accelerate through recent weeks and according to Artemis’ data the cat bond market is now on a record-setting pace in 2023, with around $8.43 billion of cat bond and related ILS currently expected to have completed by the end of May.

Swiss-headquartered fintech Cerchia has now announced the launch of its awaited capital markets focussed direct risk transfer platform, a peer-to-peer digital tool that allows protection buyers to access institutional capital providers with no middlemen required.

Aon Insurance Managers (AIM), the unit of the global insurance and reinsurance broker that deals with insurance management, including of commercial, captive and insurance-linked securities (ILS) vehicles, has added Michael Dunsire in Singapore to lead the regional operation.

Beazley, the London headquartered specialty insurance and reinsurance underwriter, has successfully sponsored its second cyber catastrophe bond, Artemis has learned from sources, with the firm topping up its debut cyber cat bond using a second segregated cell to add $20 million of fresh reinsurance cover, through a Cairney II issuance.

The target size has been lifted to $100 million for coastal property managing general underwriter SageSure’s latest catastrophe bond, with the Gateway Re Ltd. (Series 2023-2) cat bond now positioned to provide a larger than originally cited slice of reinsurance for the SureChoice and Elevate reciprocal exchanges.

Spinnaker Insurance Company has now secured $110 million of multi-year and collateralized reinsurance from the capital markets as its debut Mountain Re Ltd. (Series 2023-1) catastrophe bond issuance has now been priced.

Global insurance giant AIG is set to invest up to $500 million into third-party capital and joint-venture vehicles run by RenaissanceRe’s Capital Partners unit, as part of the arrangement that sees the company selling the Validus reinsurance and AlphaCat ILS arms to RenaissanceRe.

Hard reinsurance market pricing conditions are anticipated to begin to decelerate in 2024, with capital expected to continue flowing in and insurance-linked securities (ILS) capital raises starting to get easier, analysts at BMO Capital Markets said in a recent report.

According to our sources, the Vita Capital VI Limited (Series 2021-1) mortality catastrophe bond transaction that was sponsored by global reinsurance firm Swiss Re, is viewed as at-risk of attaching after preliminary data showed an increase in weighted mortality rates in 2022 for the US and the UK.