Best of Artemis, week ending 11th December 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 11th December 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.

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Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 11th December 2016:

1. Royal Bank of Canada unit Rochdale launches ILS interval fund
   A mutual fund investment management unit subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada has launched a prospectus for the City National Rochdale Reinsurance Premium Fund, a new ILS and reinsurance interval investment fund.

2. Cost-of-capital to be a struggle in reinsurance: S&P
   Reinsurers are going to find it increasingly difficult to meet cost-of-capital requirements as the ongoing softening market cycle mounts pressure on firms’ profitability. With the current market environment expected to persist into 2017, some reinsurers will likely see profit levels fall below their cost-of-capital, according to Standard & Poor’s (S&P).

3. Twelve Capital in $30m private debt deal for United, placed by BMS
   Zurich and London-based insurance and reinsurance linked investment manager Twelve Capital has invested in a $30 million private debt issuance from United Insurance Holdings and placed by BMS Capital Advisory, Inc.

4. NFIP proposal calls for capital market reinsurance alternatives
   A proposal for principles on which the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) should be reauthorised and reformed calls for the use of both traditional and capital market alternatives forms of risk transfer and reinsurance to support de-risking the government backed flood insurance facility.

5. At just 2% share, huge scope for ILS capital to expand into re/insurance
   The entry of alternative capital into reinsurance has slowed somewhat, at a time when achieving cost of capital returns has become increasingly challenging in reinsurance. However, data from reinsurance firm Swiss Re shows the massive potential for continued expansion of ILS into insurance risks.

6. Mitsui Sumitomo to use NASA satellites for weather derivative sales
   Japanese insurance group Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance has announced a partnership with NASA to utilise satellite data to enable it to sell weather derivative and other parametric weather insurance products more broadly around the globe.

7. ILS a priority for UK Gov post-Brexit, regs to be in place H1 2017
   Insurance-linked securities (ILS) business is seen as a priority in a post-Brexit Britain by the new UK Government cabinet, and the new regulatory regime will be in place in the first-half of 2017, according to government speakers at an event in London.

8. Latest ILS NYC 2017 conference speakers announced
   We are delighted to announce some more speakers for our upcoming conference, Artemis ILS NYC 2017, which will be held in the heart of Manhattan, New York on February 3rd 2017. Early Bird ticket rates will expire soon, so we advise you to register in the near future.

9. Operational Re cat bond helps Credit Suisse RWA capital position
   Investment bank Credit Suisse’s Operational Re Ltd. ILS transaction, which saw a catastrophe bond structure used to secure insurance via the capital markets for its operational risk exposures, has helped the bank to reduce its risk weighted assets (RWA’s) by 1.25 billion Swiss Francs.

10. Malta VAT rule change increases reinsurance SPV efficiency
    An amendment to Malta’s laws that extends a value added tax (VAT) exemption to include authorised reinsurance special purpose vehicles (RSPV’s) set up in Malta will help to ensure the islands insurance-linked securities (ILS) framework is as attractive as possible to potential registrants of such vehicles.

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.

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Artemis’ Q3 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Weather risk returns, private deals, market growth

We’ve now published our Q3 2016 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

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

Q3 saw $1.087 billion of risk capital issued from eight transactions, making it the third most active Q3 of the last decade in terms of deal volume, and one of the busiest in the market’s history in terms of number of deals. Strong investor appetite for cat bond and ILS investment saw the outstanding market size increase from the $25.174 billion recorded at the end of Q2, to $25.449 billion.

Download your copy here.