Best of Artemis, week ending 27th December 2015

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 27th December 2015, 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 27th December 2015:

1. Reinsurance may be ‘uglier’ than expected in 2016, negative outlook: A.M. Best
   Insurance and reinsurance ratings agency A.M. Best, has maintained its negative outlook for the reinsurance sector in 2016 amidst ongoing market pressures, also suggesting that once disaster strikes the true impact of current market conditions “may be uglier than some believe.”

2. ILS & cat bonds can be a socially responsible investment: Mercer
   Insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bonds as an asset class can increasingly provide  sophisticated investors with a new type of responsible investment, creating another attractive angle to the investment case for ILS, according to Mercer.

3. Munich Re lists 144a tranche of Eden Re II reinsurance sidecar on BSX
   Global reinsurance firm Munich Re has listed a $75.578 million Rule 144a tranche of collateralized reinsurance sidecar notes, issued in the recently completed Eden Re II Ltd. transaction, on the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX).

4. Market pressures to be evident in reinsurers 2016 results: Moody’s
   The impact of excess capacity, benign losses, low interest rates, and heightened competition, combined with further rate declines at the upcoming renewal season will be evident in next year’s reinsurance company results, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

5. Storm Desmond & UK floods likely a £520m re/insurance loss: ABI
   The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has said that it expects the insurance and reinsurance industry to pay for around £520 million ($775m or €715m) in claims from European windstorm Desmond and the resulting flooding in the northern UK.

6. Alternative reinsurance capital to pressure casualty: Morgan Stanley
   Pricing in the casualty reinsurance space is expected to increasingly come under pressure owing to the presence of alternative capital, but it’s impact is unlikely to be as influential as seen in the property cat space, say analysts at Morgan Stanley.

7. Philippines gets $500m World Bank catastrophe contingent credit line
   The Philippines has secured a new catastrophe contingent line of credit, to support its management of the risks posed by natural disasters, with a $500 million Second Disaster Risk Management Development Policy Loan with a Catastrophe-Deferred Drawdown Option (CAT-DDO 2).

8. SCOR’s Atlas IX Capital 2016 cat bond hits $300m, pricing moves up
   French reinsurance firm SCOR has seen its latest catastrophe bond, Atlas IX Capital DAC (Series 2016-1), grow by 20% during marketing to reach $300 million in size, while at the same time the pricing has been moved to the top end of initial spread guidance.

9. Longevity swap market forecast to be busy again in 2016: Aon Hewitt
   The market for longevity swaps and risk transfer is forecast to be busy again in 2016, by Aon Hewitt, with a continued focus on bringing longevity reinsurance capacity more efficiently to smaller pension funds as well as larger deals.

10. January renewal rate declines may be better than expected: KBW
    With reinsurance market pressures set to persist, industry executives and experts predict further rate declines at the upcoming January renewals. And while analysts and Keefe, Bruyette and Woods (KBW) agree, they believe that rate declines at 1/1 2016 may not be as steep as initially feared.

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 15 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’ Q3 2015 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – A market making steady progress

We’ve now published our Q3 2015 catastrophe bond & ILS market report.

This report reviews the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the end of the third-quarter of 2015, looking at the $1.093 billion of new risk capital issued and the composition of the cat bond & ILS transactions completed during Q3 2015.

Download your copy here.