Best of Artemis, week ending 4th July 2021

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 4th July 2021, 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.

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Ten most read articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 4th July 2021:

1. Cat bonds & related ILS hit record $8.5bn in Q2 2021: Report
   Activity in the catastrophe bond and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) market accelerated again in the second-quarter of 2021, with the three-months seeing an incredible $8.5 billion of new risk capital come to market.
2. Failure of WTW merger over US DoJ trial date “unacceptable” – Aon
   Defending itself in the courts against the United States Department of Justice’s objections to its proposed merger with rival insurance and reinsurance broker Willis Towers Watson (WTW), Aon has said that it would be “unacceptable” for its transaction to fail just because of a late trial date proposed by the DoJ.
3. Jamaica catastrophe bond grant agreements signed, deal imminent
   The project to issue a first catastrophe bond to benefit Jamaica has made further progress this month, with an important grant approval now received and the World Bank facilitated cat bond deal launch now imminent.
4. European severe storms & tornado may aggregate to EUR 2.5bn+ loss
   Severe convective weather, thunderstorms, large hail and even a tornado struck Europe over the last ten days, as a heatwave ended and severe storms took over, which actuaries believe could drive over EUR 2.5 billion of insurance market losses.
5. Firm orders fall below quotes at mid-year renewals: Willis Re
   Global reinsurance broker Willis Re has said that while reinsurance pricing continued to increase at the June and July mid-year renewal season, the market is approaching equilibrium, as it saw many reinsurers having to accept firm order terms below their initial quotes.
6. Greater Bay Re registered for China Re cat bond in Hong Kong
   We’ve learned that the first company destined to be an insurance-linked securities (ILS) special purpose vehicle has already been registered in Hong Kong, with Greater Bay Re Limited established to issue a catastrophe bond on behalf of China Re.
7. Capital supply demand mismatch far lower in 2021: Flandro
   The mismatch between capital supply and demand is now much lower than it was a year ago, with factors including capital raises and the freeing up of trapped ILS capital driving a resurgence, according to David Flandro of HX Analytics.
8. Fukushima, Japan earthquake industry loss estimated $2.63bn: CRESTA
   Having previously explained that the Magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck off the coast of the Fukushima region of Japan on February 13th 2021 was likely to be a billion dollar event, CRESTA has now estimated the industry loss from the quake at US $2.63 billion.
9. Mutual cost-of-capital can resist ILS competition. KBW on Covéa & AXA XL
   In response to the reports that insurance group Covéa wants to acquire AXA’s non-life reinsurance operations, the Bermuda headquartered AXA XL Re division, analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods have mused that the lower cost-of-capital of a mutual insurer’s strategy may be better able to withstand competition from the ILS market.
10. UCITS cat bond funds growing fast. Schroders overtakes GAM as largest
    UCITS catastrophe bond funds as a group have increased their assets significantly over the last year, with accelerated growth of the cat bond market and rising interest in ILS investments helping to propel the UCITS cat bond funds we track to asset growth of roughly 58% in just one year.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers over the last seven days. There were 35 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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