Best of Artemis, week ending 15th May 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 15th May 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 15th May 2016:

1. Fort McMurray wildfire a “reinsurance event”, maybe ILS: Deutsche Bank
   The Fort McMurray wildfires that continues to rage in Alberta are set to become the most costly natural disaster event in history for Canada, and as a result losses are expected to hit reinsurance layers and possibly ILS or alternative capital, according to analysts at Deutsche Bank. Meanwhile S&P said it expects reinsurers to take over 50% of the losses.

2. Markel CATCo names Watson as new Chief Underwriting Officer
   Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd., the Bermuda headquartered reinsurance and retrocession linked investment and fund manager, has named Lindsay Watson as Chief Underwriting Officer, in line with the firms planned strategy.

3. Swiss Re appoints Klugman & Monnier co-head’s of global ILS business
   Global reinsurance firm Swiss Re has announced some changes to the leadership of its global insurance-linked securities (ILS) business activities within the firms Capital Markets unit, with Judy Klugman and Jean-Louis Monnier appointed co-heads of ILS.

4. Dual parametric / industry loss trigger ILW’s marketed
   Artemis has learned that there are some industry-loss warranties (ILW’s) with a novel new structure currently being marketed to insurance-linked investors. The ILW’s feature a dual trigger, with a parametric and PCS industry loss both used.

5. State National & Nephila deepen relationship as program scales
   The working relationship between specialist fronting and program services insurer State National Companies and the world’s largest ILS manager Nephila Capital continues to deepen, as the pair now have an alliance to acquire shell insurers to write business exclusively for Nephila.

6. Efficient ILS structure will help secure London’s future: Beale, Lloyd’s
   The creation, with government support, of an efficient structure for insurance-linked securities (ILS) in the London insurance & reinsurance market, will help to secure the city’s future, according to Lloyd’s of London CEO Inga Beale.

7. Japan quakes, Canada wildfire to take nat cats over budget in Q2: JPM
   Losses due to natural catastrophes in the second-quarter of 2016 are expected to exceed the catastrophe budgets of major reinsurance firms, as the Kyushu, Japan earthquakes and Fort McMurray, Canada wildfire erode Q2 profits.

8. 2016 U.S. hurricane season forecast above average: UK Met Office
   The UK’s main weather forecasting agency, the UK Met Office, has forecast an above average Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season for 2016, with the most likely outcome being 14 named tropical storms and 8 hurricanes.

9. Shift noted in reinsurance buying habits in Q1
   Global reinsurance companies have been reporting their first-quarter results over the last few weeks with many noting continued reinsurance market pressures. However, firm’s highlighted that a shift in the buying habits of some cedents led to an increase in demand for reinsurance capital.

10. AIG in $298.6m Bellemeade Re II legacy mortgage insurance ILS
    Global insurer AIG has secured almost $300m of collateralized reinsurance from capital market investors for the legacy mortgage insurance portfolio of its United Guaranty subsidiary, in a Bellemeade Re II Ltd. (Series 2016-1) insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction.

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 29 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’ Q1 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Another record first-quarter

We’ve now published our Q1 2016 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the first-quarter of 2016, looking at the record $2.215 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q1 2016. The report also includes a review of global property catastrophe reinsurance pricing trends and commentary on dedicated reinsurance sector capital from co-editor GC Securities.

Download your copy here.