Best of Artemis, week ending 18th September 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 18th September 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.

Last week saw the reinsurance and ILS market meeting in Monte Carlo, for the 60th annual Rendez-vous event. As ever, that made it a busy week for news and analysis. All of our coverage of the 2016 Monte Carlo Reinsurance Rendez-vous can be found here.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 18th September 2016:

1. The pain is real: Frank Majors, Nephila Capital
   The reinsurance pricing cycle is close to bottoming out, according to Frank Majors, co-founder and principal of the world’s largest ILS fund manager Nephila Capital in an interview with Artemis.

2. Blockchain is “made for reinsurance”, a $10 billion opportunity: PwC
   Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, was “made for reinsurance,” according to PwC, and could represent a cost saving opportunity of up to $10 billion as companies look to increase efficiency and understand what the development of insurtech means for their business.

3. Alternative capital & ILS has “uberized” insurance & reinsurance
   The innovatively generated, and expanding source of alternative reinsurance capital is a game changer that has uberized the insurance and reinsurance industry, according to industry leaders speaking at the 2016 Monte Carlo Reinsurance Rendezvous.

4. Broker facilities “casino” underwriting: Victor Peignet, SCOR
   Victor Peignet, CEO of SCOR Global P&C, the property and casualty division of the global reinsurance firm, is not a fan of broker facilities because there is no “skin in the game”.

5. On accelerating the transport of risk to capital (ILS + Insurtech)
   The reinsurance and broader risk transfer market is increasingly becoming a process  of matching risk to the right capital in the most efficient manner possible, with industry trends pointing to a need to accelerate the transport of risk to capital.

6. Bottom of the soft market is very close, or already here: Swiss Re CUO
   The reinsurance market has been in a softening phase for quite some time now, driving discussions about the bottom of the current cycle. And according to Swiss Re’s Matthias Weber, the bottom is either very near, or it’s already here.

7. Regulation not solvency will cause the next hard market: John Seo, Fermat Capital
   A $100 billion catastrophe loss would not cause a significant hardening of reinsurance rates given the industry’s capacity to absorb major losses and strong appetite from the capital markets, thinks John Seo, Co-Founder and Managing Principal at cat bond and ILS specialist investment manager Fermat Capital Management LLC.

8. Torsten Jeworrek, Munich Re on reinsurance & ILS market trends
   While the long-term impact of alternative reinsurance capital and ILS on catastrophe re/insurance profits remains unclear, reinsurers such as Munich Re have an increasingly ability to cooperate with alternative capital to their own benefit, according to Torsten Jeworrek.

9. Capital markets make sense for certain risks & here to stay: Swiss Re CEO
   The securitisation of risks via third-party backed reinsurance capital “makes perfect sense” for natural catastrophe risks owing to the underinsurance of peak risks, and is an important risk transfer tool that is most likely here to stay, according to Christian Mumenthaler, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Swiss Re.

10. Reinsurers need to offer most effective capital at lowest cost: Frankland, Guy Carpenter
    The reinsurance industry has been characterised by excess capital and capacity, but the increasing range of potential capital sources has been influencing reinsurance buying dynamics, meaning reinsurers need to be able to access the most effective capital for their clients.

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 38 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’ Q2 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A quiet quarter fails to keep up with investor demand

We’ve now published our Q2 2016 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the second-quarter of 2016, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of transactions completed during Q2 2016.

Q2 2016 issuance failed to hit $2 billion, with just $1.624 billion of new risk capital issued from 14 transactions. This is the first time since 2011 that Q2 issuance has failed to reach $2 billion.

Download your copy here.