Best of Artemis, week ending 12th August 2012

It’s Monday morning again and here’s our post-Olympic catch-up of the most read articles during the last seven days. Many of you have been on vacation in recent weeks so we have left you a simple way to go back and find any important news you may have missed. Visit this page where you can read all of our previous Monday morning catch-ups. Here are the ten most popular articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 12th August 2012:

1. Solvency II, Basel III to encourage capital into reinsurance and insurance-linked sectors
   Two upcoming changes to regulatory environments in insurance and banking within Europe are set to increase scrutiny of the sector from those with capital to deploy and could create unmissable opportunities to profit, which may never be seen again
2. Liberty Mutual: Insurance-linked securities market offered more value than traditional reinsurance
   Aon Benfield Securities recently published Q2 insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond market report included an interview with Elaine Caprio Brady, Vice President and Manager of Ceded Reinsurance at Liberty Mutual Insurance. The interview discusses Liberty Mutual’s use of the insurance-linked securities market as they issued their most recent catastrophe bond, Mystic Re III Ltd. (Series 2012-1), in March of this year.
3. Exposure to loss of property insurers of last resort nears $900 billion
   The potential size of the exposure faced by U.S. residual market property insurers of last resort has risen to new highs as total exposure of these types of insurers nears the $900 billion mark.
4. U.S. drought crop insurance losses to reach into billions, hit reinsurers
   Just two or three weeks ago many insurance publications were suggesting that crop insurance losses resulting from the severe drought in the U.S. would not be large enough to hit the global reinsurance market. We’ve been cautious on this point, as we could see the increasing severity of the drought (the worst in more than 30 years) and the discussions within the commodities markets, amongst the weather risk management community and our reinsurer contacts which suggested the event was likely to become a reinsurance loss.
5. ILS investors accept higher secondary market prices to put capital to work
   This year has seen some unusual patterns in the secondary market for insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bonds. The unusual patterns began at the start of the year as mark-to-market losses were a feature which caused consternation for some investors.
6. Catastrophe bond indices continue to make steady gains
   In the last two weeks the catastrophe bond price return and total return indices have made steady gains as their return to a more seasonal pattern continues.
7. PensionsFirst Capital hire CEO with longevity hedge experience
   PensionsFirst Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of PensionsFirst Group, who offer pension risk transfer solutions to major UK companies in the management and derisking of their defined benefit pension schemes, have announced the appointment of a new CEO.
8. Japanese non-life insurers could turn to catastrophe bonds to support capital position
   Non-life insurers in Japan have found themselves in a precarious situation as their capital positions have become depleted by massive catastrophe losses in the last year or so.
9. ILO says look to macro-insurance to protect the poor from natural disasters
   According to the International Labour Organisation micro-insurance alone may not be enough to protect the poor in developing nations from natural disasters and weather related catastrophe events.
10. CATCo closes side-pocket, converting C Shares to Ordinary Shares
    Bermuda based CATCo Investment Management, the specialist reinsurance-linked investment business who manage around $2 billion of retrocessional portfolios for their clients, have announced that CATCo Diversified Fund in which the Company invests has closed down its side pocket associated with their New Zealand and Japanese catastrophe exposures.

If you’ve missed any of our weekly catch-ups due to being on vacation you can find them all here.