Best of Artemis, week ending 16th October 2011

Unsurprisingly, the Mariah Re tornado catastrophe bonds dominated much of the news last week as the impact of growing covered losses became clearer and investors sought to offload positions in the bonds. The fourth quarter now has its second cat bond marketing and investors will be hoping for a steady stream of new issuances up to the end of the year. Here, to give our readers a chance to catch up on any news they have missed, are the top ten most read stories of the last seven days.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 16th October 2011:

1. Details on the Mariah Re catastrophe bonds mark to market losses
   Details on just how much of their value the Mariah Re 2010-2 bonds lost in the secondary markets after the size of losses became clearer.
2. Slight dip in cat bond index as fate of Mariah Re becomes clearer
   In our last regular look at some of the industries cat bond indices the impact of Mariah Re losses was apparent.
3. Quarterly insurance-linked securities report from Lane Financial LLC shows markets recovery
   The first of the ILS market quarterly reports to look at Q3 2011 shows the recovery that cat bond returns have made over the course of the year.
4. Secondary cat bond market active in September, Mariah Re bonds the main losers
   Some insight on the secondary market for cat bonds where it is clear that the Mariah Re bonds were the main losers during the month of September.
5. Weatherbill changes company name to The Climate Corporation
   Technologically advanced weather insurer changes their name and confirms their focus on agriculture products.
6. Catastrophe bonds increasingly in favour as investors avoid wider financial markets
   Cat bonds and the wider ILS market are still increasing in popularity in investor circles as the wider financial markets struggle to offer decent returns due to the increasing uncertainty and nervousness in most financial assets.
7. Queen Street IV Capital Ltd. catastrophe bond sponsored by Munich Re comes to market
   The second cat bond of Q4 comes to market as Munich Re seeks to expand their U.S. hurricane and European windstorm coverage under their Queen Street series of deals.
8. Mariah Re Ltd. Series 2010-1 served event notice, suspected triggered
   Not only is the Mariah Re 2010-2 cat bond facing tornado losses, now it’s expected that losses will eat into the upper layer cat bond Mariah Re 2010-1 as well. The extent of losses is as yet unknown but should become clearer within the next few weeks.
9. Hurricane derivatives trade in record volumes during 2011
   Catastrophe derivatives have had a good year and have increased in popularity as record volumes have been traded on exchanges.
10. Hurricane Jova unlikely to trigger Multicat Mexico 2009 catastrophe bond
    Hurricane Jova threatened the Multicat Mexico catastrophe bond but when the storm came ashore in Mexico it had weakened so much that it would not meet the trigger parameters.