Best of Artemis, week ending 13th December 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 13th December 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 13th December 2015:

1. Swiss Re sees “agile capital” as an answer to re/insurance pressures
   Global reinsurance firm Swiss Re held its investors day today in Zurich, at which it has released an update to its strategy which sees the firm place great importance on being able to manage its risk, asset and capital allocations in an agile manner.

2. MultiCat cat bond downgraded to default, uncertainty on loss remains
   Uncertainty is still the order of the day when it comes to the size of the loss faced by investors in the $100m Class C tranche of the MultiCat Mexico Ltd. (Series 2012-1) catastrophe bond due to the impact of hurricane Patricia.

3. Reinsurer earnings deterioration obscured, pressure continues: Moody’s
   The deterioration of earnings in the reinsurance sector is being “obscured” by the twin forces of positive reserve releases and the benign catastrophe loss environment, effectively enabling reinsurers results to look more positive than they are, according to ratings agency Moody’s.

4. Resilience (catastrophe) bond framework developed by RE:bound
   The RE:bound program, a partnership between re:focus partners, risk modeller RMS, reinsurance firm Swiss Re and The Rockefeller Foundation, has released a new framework that leverages the catastrophe bond structure for the financing of resilient infrastructure projects.

5. Markel acquisition of CATCo Investment Management completes
   Insurance, reinsurance and financial services group Markel Corporation has officially completed its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of reinsurance and retrocessional linked investment fund manager CATCo Investment Management Ltd.

6. Nephila gets closer to the risk with Velocity MGA, plans Florida takeout
   Nephila Capital, is building itself a more direct pipeline to access catastrophe risks with its recently established MGA, Velocity Risk Underwriters LLC, evidence of which can be seen in the firms plans to participate in a takeout of wind only policies from Florida Citizens in 2016.

7. ILS continues to attract investors, will further pressure reinsurers: EIOPA
   Insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investments are continuing to attract capital market investors such as pension funds, resulting in continued growth of alternative capital and further pressure for reinsurers to face, according to regulator EIOPA.

8. Longevity risk transfer market to remain busy due to Solvency II
   The longevity risk transfer market, of longevity swap transactions and other reinsurance arrangements that hedge or transfer longevity risk, is particularly busy right now because of impending Solvency II regulation and the resulting capital requirements.

9. Blue Capital proposes ILS fund changes due to reinsurance market
   A number of changes have been proposed by the investment manager of the London and Bermuda stock exchange listed reinsurance and insurance linked securities (ILS) investment fund, the Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund, due to reinsurance market conditions.

10. Clear Blue fronting startup acquires two shell insurers, nearing launch
    Clear Blue Financial Holdings LLC has acquired two clean shell insurance vehicles in acquisitions completed a month ago, with Maiden Holdings and RLI Corp, giving it the platform to provide rated fronting to unrated and alternative reinsurance capacity, as it nears its launch.

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 27 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 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A market making steady progress

We’ve now published our Q3 2015 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 2015, looking at the $1.093 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q3 2015.

Download your copy here.