Best of Artemis, week ending April 23rd 2023

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending April 23rd 2023, 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.

Ten most read articles on Artemis.bm, week ending April 23rd 2023:

1. PIMCO to close dedicated insurance-linked securities (ILS) platform
   Asset management giant PIMCO is closing down its dedicated insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment platform, citing a lack of alignment with its long-term vision and business priorities, as well as challenges in achieving business scale.
2. Florida reinsurance renewals: Discounting the top to increase access
   At this time of year, all thoughts turn to the mid-year reinsurance renewals, particularly those for Florida, and in 2023 it’s expected to be a particularly interesting few months, with signs of competitive tactics already emerging.
3. Swiss Re’s Judy Klugman to depart firm
   Judy Klugman, the Global head of ILS Distribution and Sales at reinsurance giant Swiss Re and a long-standing and well-known leader in the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) space, is departing the firm at the end of June.
4. ILS fund side pockets for hurricane Ian continue to be reduced
   We’ve learned from sources that a number of insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund managers have recently been able to further reduce the size of investment side pockets they had established related to hurricane Ian.
5. Visualising cat bond pricing coming off the top of a hard market
   As we’ve been reporting for some weeks now, there is increasing evidence in the way catastrophe bonds are pricing that rates for reinsurance and retrocessional coverage from the cat bond market are now coming off the top of the hard market.
6. Northern Re launched as new collateralized reinsurer with $25m initial capital
   A new collateralized reinsurance company has been formed, with Cayman Islands-based Northern Reinsurance SPC, Ltd. (Northern Re) established by brothers Anthony and Peter McKelvy to deploy capital against a select group of historically profitable portfolios they know well.
7. UK regulatory approach to ILS deemed “not fit for purpose”
   A report from Conservative UK lawmakers that calls for greater Parliamentary accountability of regulators in the country, has cited the UK insurance-linked securities (ILS) experience as an example of regulatory failure to foster a new market opportunity.
8. Aon taking cat bond cover further beyond physical assets: Andersen
   Catastrophe bonds are typically a risk transfer structure protecting an insured or reinsured against losses that affect its portfolio, which normally means a focus on loss and damage to physical assets. But increasingly interruption and people’s humanitarian needs are coming into the coverage equation, with broker Aon pioneering some of these moves according to its President.
9. Allstate aggregate cat bonds possibly at-risk, as annual cat losses hit ~$3.67bn
   Annual aggregate catastrophe bonds sponsored by US primary insurance giant Allstate could come under some pressure, as the firms aggregated annual catastrophe losses across the Sanders Re cat bonds risk period soared to almost $3.67 billion after a heavy March hit from severe storms.
10. TWIA considers ILW option for top of reinsurance tower, but Board declines
    The Board of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) has heard details of an industry-loss warranty (ILW) option for the top of its reinsurance tower, as the insurer of last resort considered buying more protection than its 1-in-100 requires for 2023.

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 30 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.

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.

Get listed in our MarketView directory of professionals.