Archive for July, 2023

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending July 23rd 2023, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

According to Artemis’ sources, the audit at under fire insurtech Vesttoo continues, but the effort to uncover what exactly has happened, in relation to claims of forged or fraudulent letters of credit (LOCs), is said to have found that multiple LOCs are involved and all were issued by the same bank.

For reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter two areas of specific growth during the second-quarter of 2023 were the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and global retrocession, with capital inflows seen to help activity increase, according to President and CEO Dean Klisura.

Arbol, a technology-led underwriter of parametric risk transfer, climate and weather insurance or reinsurance business, has reported now surpassing $1 billion of notional risk limit transferred, while 2023 premiums written are running at a record pace.

Natural disaster losses covered by the insurance and reinsurance industry reached an estimated $53 billion, according to broker Aon, which it notes was some 46% above the 21st-century average.

Property catastrophe bond issuance in 2023 has now exceeded the $10 billion mark, and so is well on track to beat the previous annual record of $12.5 billion seen in 2021, Artemis’ data shows.

Hybrid fronting specialist MS Transverse has stated that Vesttoo only participates directly on one program with MS Transverse and that this business is fully collateralized with cash.

The just completed first indemnity catastrophe bond sponsored by asset management giant Blackstone is a new milestone for the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, Swiss Re’s Jean-Louis Monnier has said, as it broadens what the cat bond can do for asset managers seeking peak catastrophe peril protection.

The insurance and reinsurance industry faces a potential crisis of confidence over some forms of collateral, as the fall-out from the Vesttoo fraudulent, or forged, letter of credit (LOC) claims spread, which might elevate the profile of the fully-collateralised model of reinsurance adopted by the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

Large U.S. insurer Allstate has reported catastrophe losses of an estimated $1.13 billion for June 2023, taking total losses from events for the second-quarter of the year to $2.7 billion, pre-tax.