Best of Artemis, week ending 1st May 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 1st 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 1st May 2016:

1. La Niña development could mean greater re/insurance industry losses
   The U.S. NOAA recently issued an official La Niña watch stating that conditions were favourable for the phenomena to develop within six months, which could result in higher losses for the insurance and reinsurance sector, according to Andrew Siffert of BMS Intermediaries Inc.

2. Harrington Re to optimise “both sides” of the reinsurance balance-sheet
   Harrington Re Ltd., the start-up total return style reinsurance venture from re/insurer AXIS and alternative asset manager Blackstone, will have a flexible investment strategy, helping it to optimise both sides of the balance-sheet, after it completes a proposed capital raise of $850m.

3. ILS funds return above average 0.42% for March, 1.17% for Q1 2016
   The average return across the group of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investment funds tracked by ILS Advisers was 0.42% in March 2016, which is above the long-term mean for the month helping to take the first-quarter ILS fund average return to 1.17%.

4. “Not all reinsurers will survive” today’s market environment: A.M. Best
   Despite many reinsurers adjusting their strategies in order to mitigate the impacts of the softening market landscape, ratings agency A.M. Best has warned that the depth of testing market trends will prove too much for some reinsurance companies.

5. Outsized insurer cat losses suggest higher Texas hailstorm costs
   Recent P&C market commentary from Credit Suisse highlights outsized catastrophe losses for insurers from Texas hailstorms in March, suggesting that the overall industry loss, and any reinsurance or ILS impact, from these events could be higher than estimates suggest.

6. ILS & London can help cyber risk insurance flourish – BNY Mellon
   The insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, and London as an ILS market hub, can help cyber risk to flourish as a nascent and growing class of insurance and reinsurance business benefiting from capital markets support, according to a report from BNY Mellon.

7. Q1 will be “well below our expectations”: Munich Re CEO
   The first-quarter of 2016 will see global insurance and reinsurance firm Munich Re report figures which are “well below our expectations” and below those announced for Q1 2015, according to the outgoing CEO Nikolaus von Bomhard.

8. Realistic reinsurance RoE’s down to 3.4%, expenses up: Willis Re
   Based on a more typical catastrophe loss year reinsurers aggregate RoE for the full-year 2015 would decline to 3.4%, says Willis Re. Suggesting reduced profitability that leaves little room for firms’ to outmanoeuvre the persistent headwinds challenging the reinsurance sector.

9. 2016 U.S. severe weather & flood insured losses reach $7.4bn: Aon
   U.S. insured losses from winter weather, convective storms and floods have reached $7.4 billion in 2016 already, according to Steve Bowen of Impact Forecasting, a total that will likely rise further with this week’s weather-warned storms and as we enter peak season for severe thunderstorm risk.

10. PRA insurer stress tests show importance of reinsurance capital
    Results from a series of stress tests set by a division of the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), has underlined the importance of diversified reinsurance capital to the 26 largest UK general insurers.

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 26 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.