Best of Artemis, week ending 11th January 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 11th January 2015, 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 11th January 2015:

1. XL buys Catlin for £2.79B. Makes XL more attractive to third-party capital
   News broke on Friday that XL Group is buying Catlin for £2.79 billion, creating a much larger insurance and reinsurance group, with additional scale in property catastrophe risks which make it more attractive to third-party capital providers, XL believes. Also read our follow up piece: Combined XL – Catlin a “perfect partner” for third-party capital: McGavick.

2. What to do with all this ‘superabundant’ re/insurance capital?
   If you listen to the market and the media (including Artemis) the insurance and reinsurance industry has a problem due to being awash with excess levels, some might say ‘superabundant’ amounts, of both traditional and alternative risk capital.

3. At $62B alternative capital now 40%-50% of catastrophe reinsurance
   At a record level of $62 billion at the end of September 2014, alternative or non-traditional reinsurance capital makes up between 40% and 50% of global catastrophe reinsurance capital, or 12% of total reinsurer capital, according to Aon Benfield.

4. Acappella launching third-party capital re/insurance fund manager
   London-based Acappella Group Holdings Ltd. launched as an insurance and reinsurance holdings company this week, with one of its businesses a fund manager for third-party capital investments into insurance and reinsurance risks.

5. Reinsurance is on an inevitable road to somewhere different: Guy Carpenter
   The reinsurance industry needs a reset and is on an inevitable road to somewhere different, as relentless supply of capital means reinsurers need to adopt a lower cost-of-capital business model, executives from broker Guy Carpenter said.

6. Alternative capital improves the reinsurance value proposition: Aon Benfield
   Global reinsurance capital rose to another high by the end of 2014 and the addition of a growing pool of third-party investor sourced alternative capital means that the value proposition of reinsurance has never been higher, according to broker Aon Benfield.

7. Leine Re private cat bond benefits Swiss canton insurer GVB
   The recent CHF 70m ($71m) Leine Re private catastrophe bond transaction, which was issued through Hannover Re’s Kaith Re Ltd. segregated accounts company, was ultimately ceded by and benefits Swiss canton insurer Gebäudeversicherung Bern (GVB).

8. Reinsurance rates decline at Jan 1, change the only sustainable course
   Reinsurance broker Willis Re said that change is the only sustainable course of action for many reinsurers, as competition at renewals pushes rates on catastrophe business down by 10%, but some evidence of a price floor is emerging the broker said.

9. Third Point Re invests first $5m in Kiskadee as cat fund closure begins
   Bermuda-based hedge fund strategy reinsurer Third Point Re has begun the process of closing its catastrophe investment fund, part of which involves investing in Hiscox’s Kiskadee ILS platform, with the first $5m having been invested on January 2nd.

10. Retrocession market ‘very soft’, arbitrage opportunity emerges: Willis Re
    The very soft retrocessional reinsurance market is beginning to offer savvy underwriters and protection buyers an opportunity to arbitrage the market, broker Willis Re explained in its January renewals report.

Also, make sure you read our predictions articles, featuring leading players from the ILS, cat bond and reinsurance world.

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 32 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’ Q4 2014 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A busy finish to a record year for ILS

We’ve now published our Q4 2014 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the fourth-quarter of 2014, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q4 2014. It also includes a brief review of the full-year 2014’s record issuance.

Download your copy here.