Best of Artemis, week ending 6th November 2016

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 6th November 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.

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Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 6th November 2016:

1. Aeolus controlling stake to be sold to hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation
   Aeolus Capital Management Ltd., one of the leading insurance-linked investment managers focused on collateralized property catastrophe reinsurance and retrocession, is getting a new investor as hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation is set to acquire a controlling stake.

2. Gator Re losses near trigger, now over 94% of attachment point
   Once again the latest loss report for the Gator Re Ltd. catastrophe bond transaction shows that qualifying losses have risen further, almost reaching the entire way through the cat bond’s aggregate retention layer, now over 94% of the way to the trigger attachment point.

3. NZ quake loss tail grows again, settled insurance claims hit $19bn
   The longer-tail nature of some earthquake loss events continues to be demonstrated by the Canterbury, New Zealand disasters, with the Insurance Council reporting that paid insurance losses have now hit $19 billion, up $1 billion since the end of June. Additionally, we reported that IAG has purchased $900m of adverse development reinsurance now.

4. Unfavourable reserves could stimulate reinsurance demand
   Third-quarter results for both Travelers and RLI cite unfavourable reserve developments as a contribution to weaker underwriting returns, underlining a potential need for greater reinsurance protection as reserves fall further at the same time that attritional catastrophe losses climb.

5. Swiss Re shows why investor attraction to reinsurance isn’t going away
   For a number of years now the global reinsurance market has been softening steadily, with rates and pricing now at levels thought almost as low as they can go. But still the largest players in the market are able to return excess capital, as seen with Swiss Re this morning.

6. New speakers announced for our ILS NYC 2017 conference
   We’re delighted to announce the addition of a number of new speakers to the roster for our upcoming conference, Artemis ILS NYC 2017, which will be held in the heart of Manhattan, New York on February 3rd 2017.

7. Blenheim adds more ex-Cathedral staff, confirms Nephila investment
   Lloyd’s of London syndicate Blenheim Syndicate 5886, led by the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cathedral Capital Peter Scales, has added a number of ex-Cathedral property underwriting staff and also confirmed today the investment made by ILS manager Nephila Capital.

8. Reinsurance & ILS strengthen adaptability of cyber insurance: Welsh, Sciemus
   The type of cyberattack as seen recently on domain name system (DNS) provider Dyn are expected to become more commonplace, but this scenario highlights how reinsurance and capital markets can assist with the adaptability of cyber insurance as a means of transferring such risk, according to Rick Welsh.

9. Indonesia urged to use cat bonds to back disaster insurance scheme
   The idea of using catastrophe bonds as a tool to provide access to the capital markets for risk capital to support government backed disaster or natural catastrophe insurance schemes continues to gain acceptance, with Indonesia the latest to be urged to follow this route.

10. Harrington Re integral to AXIS’ alternative capital strategy: Benchimol
    Total-return reinsurance vehicle Harrington Re, established earlier this year by re/insurer AXIS in partnership with Blackstone, has become an integral part of the firm’s broader alternative capital strategy, according to AXIS Capital Holdings President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Albert Benchimol.

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 31 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 2016 Catastrophe Bond & ILS Market Report – Weather risk returns, private deals, market growth

We’ve now published our Q3 2016 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 2016, looking at the new risk capital issued and the composition of transactions completed during Q2 2016.

Q3 saw $1.087 billion of risk capital issued from eight transactions, making it the third most active Q3 of the last decade in terms of deal volume, and one of the busiest in the market’s history in terms of number of deals. Strong investor appetite for cat bond and ILS investment saw the outstanding market size increase from the $25.174 billion recorded at the end of Q2, to $25.449 billion.

Download your copy here.