Archive for February, 2025

The potential for subrogation recoveries to be made if a utility is deemed responsible for its equipment starting one of the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, California, may be the deciding factor in whether insurer Mercury claims for the fires as one event or two under its reinsurance, the firm’s CEO said yesterday.

SageSure has secured its largest catastrophe bond issuance yet as the Gateway Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1)  deal has now been priced to provide the company with $520 million of first and second event US named storm reinsurance protection, while the notes were priced at the bottom of lowered guidance, Artemis has learned.

Twelve Securis has been established with $8.5 billion of assets under management (AUM) making the newly branded and combined ILS manager one of the largest in the sector, after the merger of Twelve Capital and Securis Investment Partners has now completed.

Flood Re, the state-backed flood reinsurance pool in the United Kingdom, has entered the catastrophe bond market in search of £100 million in fully-collateralized UK flood retrocessional reinsurance, with a London Bridge 2 PCC Limited (Vision 2039 – 2025-1) transaction.

The new Ocelot Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond transaction that is being sponsored by Hiscox Group has seen its price guidance dropped during the marketing phase of the issuance, as investors demonstrate their appetite for risk from respected sponsors.

Following a record year for catastrophe bond issuance in 2024, the cat bond market remains strong, and according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets, it should continue to remain a critical part of companies’ risk management tools, alongside reinsurance purchases.

Insurance industry losses for the flooding related to the remnants of Hurricane Debby that affected Ontario and Quebec between August 9th and 10th, 2024, is estimated to have reached CAD 2.817 billion, according to CatIQ, Canada’s insured loss and exposure indices provider.

With the recent California wildfires seen as likely to drive the second most costly first-quarter on record for the global insurance and reinsurance industry, AIG CEO Peter Zaffino has warned that a $200 billion annual catastrophe loss year in 2025 could “recalibrate the entire industry.”

At the January 2025 reinsurance renewals, AIG improved the terms of its aggregate catastrophe reinsurance protection, lowering the deductible in North America, CEO Peter Zaffino has said, while he also explained that the recent third-party capitalised syndicate launch is expected to drive fee income for the company.

Since their introduction to the market in 2023, there’s now been 10 cyber cat bonds, and CyberCube, the cyber risk analytics provider, expects their coverage, along with cyber insurance-linked securities (ILS) solutions to narrow and become more targeted going forward.