Artemis.bm Newsletter – May 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 May 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 last months communication; here are some of the highlights.

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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/ and our blog at http://www.artemis.bm/news/

Brit Insurance has announced it’s intention to trade on IFEX
The London market insurers foray into insurance futures makes it the first of it’s kind to do so.

The CME is expanding it’s locations for weather trading
This week they’ve announced the addition of Oslo, Norway; Little Rock, Ark.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; and Washington DC which brings the total number of locations for city temperature contracts to 42 (broken down as 24 in the U.S., 10 in Europe, six in Canada and two in Japan).

HomeWise issue Mangrove cat bond
HomeWise Insurance Co. have issued a cat bond called Mangrove to securitise their Florida windstorm risk. More details in our Deal Directory http://www.artemis.bm/deal-directory/

Zenkyoren issues Japanese quake bond
Zenkyoren has transferred it’s Japanese earthquake risks to the capital markets via a cat bond deal with Munich Re through SPV Muteki Ltd. More details in our Deal Directory http://www.artemis.bm/deal-directory/

TFS completes Dutch auction for U.S. clients
TFS Energy announced its US weather derivatives division completed a Dutch auction for Madison, WI and Cedar Rapids, IA, on behalf of a client who was looking to offset its risk.

S&P change cat bond ratings
Standard & Poor’s have amended a default table they use to help them rate insurance linked securitizations and catastrophe bonds. 11 cat bonds and six life mortality securitizations have been affected by the change.

More interest in ILS
Insurance linked securitisation is attracting increasing interest from potential issuers and structurers as more companies begin to ponder transferring their risks to the capital markets, says Fitch Ratings. Not uncommon for two rating agencies to have opposing views (see below).

Senate rejects windstorm addition to NFIP
The Senate rejected the effort to include windstorm insurance in the federal flood insurance program warning that the addition could overwhelm the program.

Amlin forms fund management venture
Amlin plc announced its intention to form a new Investment Management Partnership with John Wells and Luca Albertini. John Wells will become its Chairman and Luca Albertini its Chief Executive. The new venture, which is subject to FSA authorisation, will manage funds focused in traded insurance risk.

IFEX to list 2nd event contracts
IFEX (the Insurance Futures Exchange) says that the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange is to list 2nd event tropical storm contracts.

S&P say cat bonds to slow
Standard & Poors say that cat bond issuance is to slow in 2008 due to the competetively priced availability of reinsurance. This has been evidenced by the slow build up of deals but now the pipeline is growing.

FM Global to turn back on cat bonds?
Comments from Shivan Subramaniam, CEO of FM Global, on the issues affecting their business due to the reductions in rates currently being experienced in the market suggest they may not be issuing a cat bond this year.

Nephila to extend work with Weatherbill
Nephila Capital is extending its partnership with Weatherbill (as announced at RIMS) by agreeing to provide more capacity for the online weather risk service. All cover will continue to be provided via the Nimbus Weather Fund run by Nephila.

Weather bill open in UK
WeatherBill announced that Jens Boening has been appointed as Managing Director, Europe and Asia for the company. Boening will be based out of WeatherBill’s new United Kingdom branch office.

FINRA warn on cat bonds
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority issued an Investor Alert warning investors about the risks of speculating on natural disasters with event-linked securities. Reaction was subdued and investors do not appear deterred.

WindX weather station network announced
A network of hurricane-hardened weather stations to measure wind speeds for a new securities index has been installed in preparation for the 2008 hurricane season, Risk Management Solutions and Weatherflow revealed. The stations will provide wind speed data for the WindX parametric index, which supports the transfer and trading of catastrophic hurricane risk in the capital markets.

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 and giving us your opinion. 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.

Parametric triggered insurance policies now available in Japan

Upcoming catastrophe bond deals

Cat bond commentary from Renaissance Re and PartnerRe in earnings calls

Pension funds getting into weather futures?

CME Group and Storm Exchange weather risk study released

If your flights delayed, blame the weather…

Caribbean catastrophe risk alternative emerges

Weather risk cover still prohibitively expensive for events organisers?

Upcoming Events & Conferences:

To view details of upcoming industry events and conferences please visit our event directory http://www.artemis.bm/events_calendar/

Deal Directory:

New deals have been added to the directory in the past month. To view our entire Deal Directory, featuring deals going back to 1994, please visit http://www.artemis.bm/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 http://www.artemis.bm/contact_us/

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!

– 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 http://www.artemis.bm/news/

– Over the coming days we’ll be adding a page to help you keep abreast of the Atlantic hurricane season.

– Also planned for the coming month are updates to the Library resources.

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 using the contact form accessible at http://www.artemis.bm/contact_us/

Finally, please note that you can unsubscribe from these newsletters at any time by using the link at the foot of this email. We sincerely hope you won’t as we promise not to spam you and to only send newsletters of market updates and pertinent updates related to our service.

Best wishes and enjoy Artemis!