Best of Artemis, week ending 10th July 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 10th July 2016, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.


Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 10th July 2016:

1. Reinsurers best positioned post Brexit: Deutsche Bank
   As the solvency ratios of European insurers and reinsurers fluctuate after the UK’s recent vote to leave the EU, analysts at Deutsche Bank have highlighted reinsurers as the “relative safe haven” among European players in light of current, and further expected market volatility and uncertainty.

2. Harrington Re, AXIS – Blackstone total-return start-up, raises $600m
   Harrington Re, the start-up total-return focused reinsurance firm launched by established re/insurer AXIS Capital and investment giant Blackstone, has now officially completed its capital raise and is ready to open for underwriting business.

3. Canadian wildfires hit ILS funds in May, average performance 0.12%
   The average return across insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investment funds was just 0.12% in May 2016, as the Fort McMurray, Canada wildfires and other catastrophe events caused losses and erosion of aggregate retentions for funds investing in private ILS and collateralized reinsurance deals.

4. Gen Re – TransRe deal hikes efficiency of Buffett’s reinsurance capacity
   Interesting news last night as an announcement came out from Alleghany owned TransRe to explain that the reinsurance firm has entered into an agreement with Warren Buffett’s Gen Re which will effectively see it produce business for the firm.

5. Mitsui Sumitomo to issue catastrophe bonds for Japanese corporates
   According to a report, Japanese primary insurance group Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance has launched a service that issues catastrophe bonds for corporations and non-financial companies, from energy utilities to factories, to provide capital markets backed insurance protection.

6. ILS market rate-on-line continues rise, but risk increases: Lane Financial
   Catastrophe bond rates-on-line continued their trend of remaining stable through the second-quarter of 2016, with the Lane Financial LLC synthetic insurance-linked securities (ILS) rate-on-line index rising by 2% during the period.

7. 2016 hurricane forecast increased by Colorado State meteorologist
   Once again forecasts for tropical storm and hurricane season activity in the Atlantic basin in 2016 are on the rise, with the Colorado State University (CSU) forecaster Philip J. Klotzbach increasing his forecast slightly.

8. Convergence of capital markets and reinsurance only just begun
   Around twenty years into the convergence of reinsurance and capital markets there is a feeling that the trend is still in its infancy, with the direct connection of capital from institutional and increasingly more private investors to risk having a long future ahead.

9. Cat bond & ILS market still in its infancy, plenty of room to grow: PCS
   Repeat sponsors dominated catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuance in the first-half of 2016, as cat bond lite and traditional 144A issuance contracted. However, typical sponsor issuance cycles and continued innovation suggests there’s still plenty of room for growth.

10. Castella stays in charge of third-party capital at PartnerRe
    Following its previously announced plans to restructure and reorganise, reinsurance firm PartnerRe has announced a range of appointments, which includes news that Herve Castella will remain Head of Third Party Capital at the reinsurer.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 25 new articles published in the last week. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.

Get listed in our MarketView directory of professionals.

View the current breakdown of the market in our range of charts, allowing you to analyse the cat bond market.

Artemis’ Q2 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A quiet quarter fails to keep up with investor demand

We’ve now published our Q2 2016 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the second-quarter of 2016, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of transactions completed during Q2 2016.

Q2 2016 issuance failed to hit $2 billion, with just $1.624 billion of new risk capital issued from 14 transactions. This is the first time since 2011 that Q2 issuance has failed to reach $2 billion.

Download your copy here.