Best of Artemis, week ending 31st March 2013

The catastrophe bond market continues to look healthy, with more news of cat bond pricing coming in at attractive levels, the latest deals upsizing and more new transactions in the market this week. As always, you can read every market news story and article on the Artemis news blog, subscribe to our weekly email newsletter updates and for your convenience here are the ten most popular news articles from the last seven days on Artemis.

Top ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 31st March 2013:

1. PartnerRe launches $75m Lorenz Re reinsurance sidecar facility
   Bermuda based reinsurer PartnerRe Ltd. has become the latest to launch a third-party capital management play with the announcement late yesterday of a new reinsurance sidecar called Lorenz Re Ltd.
2. Lloyd’s: Third-party ILS capital is both a threat and opportunity
   We sat in on the Lloyd’s annual results conference last week and wanted to find out how the market intends to adapt, or otherwise, to leverage the current trend for third party investor capital to flow into ILS, catastrophe bonds and collateralized reinsurance. So we asked the panel, made up of CEO Richard Ward, Director of Finance & Operations Luke Savage and Director of Performance Management Tom Bolt, exactly that.
3. Tar Heel Re cat bond grows to $500m, follows trend on lower pricing
   The trend for recent catastrophe bonds to see very attractive terms and pricing continues with North Carolina wind pools, the North Carolina Joint Underwriters Assn. (NCJUA) and the North Carolina Insurance Underwriters Assn. (NCIUA), Tar Heel Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1) cat bond.
4. Fast capital? Welcome to the ‘new normal’
   Third-party investor capitals increasing interest and growing influence in the insurance and reinsurance markets is something that insurers and reinsurers are going to have to get used to as a ‘new normal’, according to the Chairman of ACE European Group, Andrew Kendrick.
5. Insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds see best February return since 2010
   2013 has continued on a positive note for investors and fund managers as the average return of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance-linked investment funds in February reached 0.73% as measured by the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index.
6. PCS re-survey leaves hurricane Sandy loss estimate at $18.75 billion
   PCS has now issued a second re-survey loss estimate for hurricane Sandy and the updated estimate remains at $18.75 billion, so no change to January’s figure.
7. Citizens approves Everglades Re 2013 cat bond, ecstatic with pricing
   The Board of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance, the state backed property insurer of last resort, has just approved its reinsurance and risk transfer plans for 2013 including the second catastrophe bond from the insurer, Everglades Re Ltd. (Series 2013-1).
8. Caelus Re 2013-2 catastrophe bond grows to $320m
   The second Caelus Re 2013 Ltd. (Series 2013-2) catastrophe bond issuance from U.S. insurer Nationwide Mutual has grown in size to $320m before close, according to our sources.
9. Another independent UK asset manager grows allocation to catastrophe reinsurance
   Another of the UK’s independent asset managers has followed a trend which is emerging where some independent investment houses increase their allocations to reinsurance and catastrophe risk through some of the ILS and reinsurance funds we cover here on Artemis.
10. Swiss Re settles life retrocession dispute with Berkshire Hathaway
    Reinsurer Swiss Re has announced that its dispute with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway regarding a 2010 life retrocession deal has now been settled. The settlement will see Swiss Re take back some of the life exposure included in the retro deal and the reinsurer will receive a payment of $610m from Berkshire Hathaway.

This is by no means every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis subscribe to our weekly email newsletter update.

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