Best of Artemis, week ending 30th August 2020

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 30th August 2020, 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 or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

Last chance to register for our upcoming reinsurance & ILS webcast.

Ten most read articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 30th August 2020:

1. Hurricane Laura assessment to take time, double-digit billion loss possible
   Hurricane Laura has now been downgraded to a tropical depression as it moves over Arkansas but it has taken more than 24 hours from landfall for its sustained winds to drop below storm strength, with the significant footprint of the large storm likely to make damage assessment take time.
2. Hurricane Laura wind & surge insured loss $8bn to $12bn: CoreLogic
   Hurricane Laura’s impacts wind and storm surge impacts in Texas and Louisiana are estimated to have caused insured losses of between $8 billion and $12 billion, according to CoreLogic.
3. Google unit Verily enters insurance with Swiss Re backing
   Entry of the so-called tech giants into the insurance and reinsurance market has always been a hot topic and today it’s been announced that a Google unit is entering the employer stop-loss insurance space with the backing and support of reinsurance giant Swiss Re.
4. AIR preliminarily pegs hurricane Laura industry loss at $4.8bn to $9.2bn
   According to industry sources, catastrophe risk modeller AIR Worldwide’s preliminary estimate of insurance and reinsurance market losses from hurricane Laura was pegged in a range from $4.8 billion to as high as $9.2 billion.
5. COVID-19 business interruption hit to ILS seen as minimal
   After canvassing a number of insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment fund managers and end-investors for their views on possible loss impacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority strongly believe that impacts from the business interruption issue will only be minimal to their ILS strategies and ILS portfolios.
6. Hurricane Laura exposed insurers could tap reinsurance (ALL, TRV, PGR, HIG)
   A number of the major property and casualty insurers that are seen as most exposed to hurricane Laura’s impacts on the Gulf Coast region could tap into their reinsurance programs, should the major hurricane prove particularly impactful.
7. With a major hurricane landfall approaching in 2020, why can’t I …?
   Picture the scene, it’s August 2020 and major hurricane Laura is in the Gulf of Mexico moving over some of the warmest waters on the planet and forecast to intensify into a Category 4 storm before slamming into Louisiana and Texas, with Galveston Bay and Houston still perilously close to the cone of uncertainty.
8. Live cat ILW’s fail to trade as Laura’s track stays east of Houston: Tremor
   While hurricane Laura was intensifying rapidly on its path towards the Gulf Coast, insurtech firm Tremor Technologies ran a series of industry loss warranty (ILW) auctions, but no trades were made as the market assumed the loss would not be significant enough to warrant the added coverage.
9. Retro capacity decline exacerbated by fear of COVID-19: A.M. Best
   The decline in available retrocessional reinsurance capacity is being exacerbated by ongoing fears over potential losses related to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, on top of the added issue of pre-emptive trapping of collateralised ILS capacity, according to the rating agency.
10. Swiss Re “bullish” on ILS capacity rebound: Judy Klugman
    In spite of the overhang of a global pandemic, catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuance was robust in the first half of the year, leading reinsurance giant Swiss Re to be very optimistic that market capacity will rebound.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 37 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.

Get listed in our MarketView directory of professionals.

View the current breakdown of the ILS market in our range of charts, allowing you to analyse cat bond issuance.

Check out the assets under management of the ILS fund market with our ILS investment manager directory.