Best of Artemis, week ending 16th April 2017

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 16th April 2017, 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.

Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 16th April 2017:

1. Reinsurers deriving “significant benefits” from alternative capital: Aon Benfield
   Property & casualty reinsurance firms are deriving “significant benefits from their ability to leverage alternative capital” according to broker Aon Benfield, helping them to lower the cost of their underwriting capital and raising efficiency.

2. ILS market transparency questions raised
   Is the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market becoming less transparent, as transactions undertaken using capital market investor capital shift further towards the private and collateralized reinsurance arena, and what does this mean for investors and ceding companies?

3. Swiss Re sees its cyclone Debbie loss at US$350m, industry at $1.3bn
   Global reinsurance firm Swiss Re has published an estimate of its losses due to tropical cyclone Debbie at around US $350 million and the insured market loss at around US $1.3 billion, which would indicate an insurance industry burden greater than 2011’s cyclone Yasi and perhaps tip Swiss Re beyond its Q1 cat budget.

4. Cat bond market hits record at $27.7bn, as 2017 issuance passes $4bn
   The catastrophe bond market has reached a new all-time high at almost $27.7 billion of risk capital outstanding, as the settlement and closing today of reinsurance firm Everest Re’s $1.25 billion Kilimanjaro II Re take this year’s issuance to $4.031 billion.

5. David Govrin joins Third Point Re U.S.
   David Govrin, previously of Berkshire Hathaway and formerly a founder of a capital markets focused intermediary, has joined Third Point Reinsurance (USA) Ltd. as its executive vice president in charge of underwriting.

6. Nephila almost doubles Syndicate 2357 capacity to $283.2m
   Nephila Capital, the largest manager of catastrophe and weather insurance or reinsurance linked assets, has added a significant amount of capacity to its Syndicate 2357 vehicle at Lloyd’s of London, while the business mix written by the syndicate has changed as it supports the ILS manager’s growing U.S. MGA activities.

7. Commercial property & large insurance accounts see rate declines in Q1
   While the primary insurance market can sometimes be considered to be removed from the competitive pressures of reinsurance, there are continuing signs that larger commercial lines and property risks are affected by excess traditional capital and the expansion of ILS markets.

8. PCS issues first Turkish catastrophe loss estimate for terror related events
   Property Claim Services (PCS) has issued its first industry loss estimate for catastrophe events under its PCS Turkey catastrophe loss aggregation and industry loss estimation service. The combined loss estimate across two terrorism insurance related incidents is TRY 510 million (approx. $140 million).

9. PRA’s 2017 stress test to identify use of ILS and alternative capital
   The 2017 general insurance stress test from the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) division of the Bank of England is set to identify the use of alternative reinsurance capital, as it seeks information from general insurers on how their capital would respond to severe loss scenarios.

10. Slowed entry of ILS unlikely to drive a turn in reinsurance pricing
    It’s been suggested that the slowed entry of alternative capital and moderated reserve releases in the global reinsurance market might be stabilising the sector and lead to a flat January 2018 renewal, however recent market dynamics suggest we haven’t seen the end of rate declines.

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 19 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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