Best of Artemis, week ending 17th April 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 17th April 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 17th April 2016:

1. Stronger M7+ earthquake extends damage in Kumamoto, Japan
   A second and larger M7+ earthquake struck the Kumamoto region of Kyushu, the southernmost main island of Japan, during the early hours of Saturday morning local time. Damage in the region is now much more extensive, with many reports of buildings and structures downed. Also read our article on the first Kumamoto quake and our article on the M7.8 Ecuador earthquake.

2. 2016 hurricane forecasts, La Niña & SST’s suggest more active season
   2016 Atlantic hurricane season forecasts so far suggest more activity in the Atlantic tropics than seen in recent years and a greater chance of U.S. hurricane landfalls, as the transition to La Niña and warmer sea surface temperatures near the U.S. coast and in the Gulf may influence hurricane activity. Also read: La Niña watch, 50% chance of U.S. hurricane strike in 2016: Forecasters.

3. Plenum & Sequant partner on new collateralized reinsurance ILS Fund
   Independent Zurich based insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond fund manager Plenum Investments Ltd. is partnering with Bermudian collateralized reinsurance and ILS investments start-up Sequant Re to launch a new high-yielding ILS fund.

4. Verisk working to refine traditional cat-in-a-box structure
   Verisk Insurance Solutions is working on enhancing the traditional parametric cat-in-a-box structure, aiming to minimise basis risk and expand its capabilities, which in turn could create opportunities for the reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) markets to deploy more capacity.

5. Lombard Odier IM launches first catastrophe bond fund
   Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM), the asset management arm of Swiss private banking group Lombard Odier, has announced the launch of its first catastrophe bond fund, the UCITS compliant LO Funds – CAT Bonds.

6. Reinsurance renewals favour cedents, same expected mid-year: Aon
   Ample capacity, favourable pricing and terms & conditions (T&C) witnessed at Q1 2016 renewals are expected to continue at the important mid-year reinsurance renewal season, supporting a continuation of the buyers market seen in 2015, according to broker Aon Benfield’s latest report.

7. ILS & capital markets needed on “too big to insure” cyber risk: Study
   The alternative risk transfer techniques adopted by the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, as well as the depth of capacity that can be provided by the capital markets, are both needed to help to tackle the “Too big to insure” world of cyber risk, according to a study.

8. TigerRisk in first electronic secondary reinsurance trade
   Catastrophe reinsurance broker and risk/capital management advisor TigerRisk, has successfully transacted the first ever electronic secondary reinsurance trade. A move that could help develop a more liquid secondary market for to benefit reinsurance linked investors.

9. Re/insurance needs to do more on climate catastrophes: UN’s Ban Ki-Moon
   The global insurance and reinsurance industry, so including the ILS and catastrophe bond market along with providers of capital, needs to do more to help counter the threat of climate catastrophes, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

10. United’s Q1 losses to exceed retention on aggregate cat reinsurance
    Property casualty insurance holding company United Insurance Holdings Corp. (also known as UPC Insurance) said today that it expects that catastrophe losses suffered during the first-quarter of 2016 will exhaust the retention layer on its aggregate catastrophe reinsurance layer.

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.