Oak Leaf Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1)

This is the third private catastrophe bond transaction to be issued under the Oak Leaf Re Ltd. Bermuda domiciled special purpose insurer.

The deal is being marketed privately to investors and Towers Watson Capital Markets (TWCM) is again structuring, arranging and acting as bookrunner on the cat bond transaction, as it did for the other Oak Leaf deals.

The Oak Leaf Re 2013-1 deal sees the amount of cover provided grow again (over the 2011 transactions $11.95m and the 2012 transactions $22.78m), we understand that the transaction is looking to secure up to $36m of cover. The transaction actually closed to offer $30.49m of protection to the cedant.

The Oak Leaf Re 2013-1 private catastrophe bond has is again a one-year deal and provides the sponsor, a Florida homeowners specialty insurance company and a brokerage client of Towers Watson, with a source of indemnity-based, collateralized catastrophe reinsurance coverage.

The 2013 Oak Leaf Re cat bond has had a few changes to its structure to more closely match the cover it provides with the sponsors needs. This year Towers Watson said the cat bond contains three layers of the sponsor’s risk management program, including a reinstatement premium protection layer. In a similar manner to the previous Oak Leaf Re private cat bonds, another layer of the 2013 deal provides both cover for a top layer for severity and an aggregate layer for frequency protection.

It has been reported that the sponsor of the Oak Leaf Re cat bonds is Florida based homeowners insurer Southern Oak Insurance Company. That reflects the rumours in the market after the 2012 deal, however we have no way of confirming the sponsors identity yet.