Archive for September, 2023

Moody’s Investors Service said today that it is continuing to hold a negative outlook on the UK property and casualty (P&C) insurance sector, citing higher reinsurance costs and less availability of aggregate coverage as key factors.

The Ambassador catastrophe bond mutual fund strategy has now surpassed the $100 million in assets under management (AUM) level needed to be recognised as a qualified institutional buyer (QIB), with further capital raised and allocated to new catastrophe bond positions in the last quarter of record.

Markel CATCo Investment Management, the retrocessional reinsurance specialist investment manager arm of Markel, is still running-off its portfolio of risk and in the last quarter of record managed to recover additional value as favourable development of its side pocket loss reserves continued.

The latest filings in the Vesttoo bankruptcy case show that the battle over control of and access to segregated cells used for Vesttoo linked reinsurance contracts continues, while the counsel for the unsecured creditor committee has raised a concern that cash may have been withdrawn from some of them.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) is back to reopen the 144a catastrophe bond market during its traditional summer wind season pause in issuance, seeking $150 million or more in earthquake reinsurance protection via a new Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2023-2) transaction.

Howden Tiger Capital Markets & Advisory, the insurance-linked securities and capital markets unit of the reinsurance broker, has announced the hire of Cate Kenworthy, previously Head Of Business Development, UK and Ireland at ILS fund manager Securis Investment Partners LLP.

Broking giant Aon has announced the hiring of former Aeolus Capital Management portfolio manager Jake Nichols, as its new Global Clients Leader, Bermuda, within the firms Reinsurance Solutions division.

Because some of the capital in the reinsurance industry that had been nervous about potential losses from last year’s hurricane Ian has now calmed down somewhat, Russell Merrett, Chief Underwriting Officer of Inigo, the Lloyd’s syndicate owner and specialty underwriter, believes there will be more certainty on capital availability at this year’s renewals.

This video of the fourth session of the day at our recent Artemis ILS Asia 2023 conference, held in Singapore on July 13th 2023, features a panel discussion about insurance-linked securities (ILS) related developments in Singapore, with its ILS regulatory regime and the future opportunity there.

Two tranches of preferred shares issued in 2020 by the AXIS Capital sponsored collateralized reinsurance sidecar vehicle Alturas Re Ltd. have had their maturity dates extended, presumably to allow for ongoing development of loss activity they may be exposed to.