Artemis.bm Newsletter – April 2008

This is an online copy of our monthly email newsletter which was sent out on Friday. If you’d like to subscribe and receive it regularly please fill out this form.

Welcome to the April edition of the Artemis Newsletter, we hope you find it of value (and we welcome your feedback). There have been many updates to the site since our last communication; here is a selection of the highlights.

Latest Market News:

Here is a selection of the many news stories relevant to our market from the past month. To keep up to date with the latest news please visit http://www.artemis.bm/news/

TFS Energy Hosts the First Weather Derivatives Trade and Dutch Auction for Rome, Italy
TFS announced its US weather derivatives division completed the first Dutch auction for Rome, Italy, on behalf of a client who was looking to offset its risk.

Aon Re Global adds new ART talent
Aon have announced two new hires to their capital markets team. Brett Houghton and Brooks Crankshaw have both been employed as managing directors of Aon Capital Markets reporting in to Paul Schultz. Houghton comes from Lehman Brothers where he was SVP of the structured finance group, responsible for the trading and product management of insurance-linked and other esoteric products. Crankshaw joins from J.P. Morgan Securities, where he was MD of securitized products.

S&P downgrades some Avalon Re notes
Following notification that a steam pipe explosion in New York City on July 18th 2007 would be covered under the terms of the agreement, S&P announced they would be downgrading some of the deals notes.

Storm Exchange to acquire Weather Ventures
Storm Exchange, Inc., a company that helps businesses improve their performance in the face of increasingly volatile weather, announced that it will acquire Weather Ventures, Ltd., a firm providing information, strategies and decision system designs for managing weather and climate risk in the public and private sectors

A.M. Best Harmonizes Basis Risk Evaluation of Catastrophe Bonds and ILWs
A.M. Best have announced that they are extending their September 2006 methodology ‘Gauging the Basis Risk of Catastrophe Bonds‘ to cover the evaluation of basis risk for Industry Loss Warrents (ILWs) as well.

Chubb places bond for North American catastrophes
Chubb Group has issued the second deal in the East Lane series. East Lane Re II provides multi-year coverage for a variety of events from natural catastrophes to building collapse. Full details in our Deal Directory.

Iffco-Tokio make payment under Barish Bima Yojna
Iffco-Tokio General Insurance Co. Ltd. announced claim disbursement worth Rs.1.31 crore for its immensely popular Barish Bima Yojna (BBY) for the farmers of Chattisgarh. Barish Bima Yojana is an indexed based product which provides insurance cover to farmers due to deficiency in rainfall.

TFS hosts first ever Asian weather derivatives auction
TFS hosted a successful and oversubscribed ‘Dutch auction’ for a Japanese client, the first ever in Asia.

Marsh launch WindX-SI
Marsh has announced it has launched a parametric insurance product to address financial exposures faced by businesses due to hurricane-force winds. The new product was developed in conjunction with Risk Management Solutions (RMS), a catastrophe modeling organization, and WeatherFlow, Inc., owner and operator of a network of wind monitoring stations.

India exchange planning weather futures
India’s National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange is planning on listing the countries first commodities index. Starting with with it’s most active commodities the plan is to follow up by launching a weather index in the near future.

Artemis Blog updates:

There have been a number of new posts on the blog in the past month. Please remember to get involved by commenting on our blog posts. We really want it to become a conversation about the key news and issues affecting our marketplace. If you’d like to contribute a guest posting please contact us. Here are some of the highlights in the past month.

Do renewals mean more action for catastrophe bonds?

Hedge funds took the brunt of Katrina, Rita & Wilma

2008 Atlantic hurricane forecast predicts above-average season

Is the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility providing enough cover?

IMF World Economic Outlook – Catastrophe Bond and Weather Derivatives

2008 to be another big year for catastrophe bonds?

Should Florida State invest in catastrophe bonds?

Can alternative risk transfer tactics be applied to economic recession?

Upcoming Events:

To view details of upcoming industry events and conferences please visit our events calendar.

Deal Directory:

To view our entire Deal Directory, featuring deals going back to 1994, please visit Artemis Deal Directory.

MarketView and Personnel Directories:

We will soon have our famous market and personnel directories back online. If you’d like to be included please contact us and fill out as much of this form as possible.

Artemis Update:

Since the last newsletter we’ve added some new features to the site. Please continue to bear with us as we get fully up to speed, there’s more to come!

– We’ve added our famous resource library back into the site. This has been updated and will continue to be worked on over the coming weeks to make it into the best online resource for learning about our markets.

– We’ve also added our ART and Weather Trading Glossaries to give you explanations of some of the more esoteric terms you may come across in our library.

– The Artemis Blog is rapidly becoming a great place to visit for  commentary on the market. However, what we really need is for you to get involved by commenting/replying to posts, suggesting topics and getting in touch with us if you want to write a post for the blog. Please make use of this great, and building, resource.

As ever, please do contact us if you would like to submit some information or events for publication. We also have advertising and sponsorship opportunities available. With a large visitor base it’s the perfect place to showcase your speciality to industry professionals. Contact us for more details.