Best of Artemis, week ending February 18th 2024

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending February 18th 2024, 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 February 18th 2024:

1. Family offices leaning into insurance for diversification. So is KKR: McVey
   Family office investors are increasingly leaning into allocations to the insurance sector as they seek out sources of diversification and relatively uncorrelated returns, something that investment giant KKR has been doing itself, according to the firm’s Henry McVey.
2. Philippe Trahan leaves Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) in re-org
   One of the longest-standing end-investor allocators to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market has left his employer, as a re-organisation at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) sees its Managing Director of ILS Philippe Trahan departing the organisation.
3. Risk recalibrated – but ILS investors need more than one year’s evidence: ILS NYC 2024
   More than 400 attendees joined us in New York for our seventh conference in the city on Friday 9th February and while those at  ILS NYC 2024 heard of a determination to sustain the improved market environment from industry experts, end-investors said that more than one year of evidence is required.
4. Vesttoo reinsurance transaction funds said co-mingled, depleted. Unclear what is left
   At a Vesttoo Chapter 11 bankruptcy case hearing, counsel for the official creditor committee said that in working to identify and trace funds remaining from reinsurance transactions implicated in the letter of credit (LOC) fraud, these investigations, which are ongoing, suggest funds were drawn from debtor structures and co-mingled, then used to pay company expenses.
5. TWIA may need as much as $3.7bn in reinsurance limit for 2024
   The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) may require more reinsurance limit than had been originally thought, as modelled data shows the insurer of last resort could look for as much as $3.7 billion for its 2024 renewal, almost $1.5 billion up on TWIA’s 2023 reinsurance and catastrophe bond purchase.
6. Investor interest in ILS resurging, but allocators will manage capacity: ILS NYC 2024
   Investor interest in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class is resurging, as 2023’s strong returns and improvements to structures peak interest across institutional markets, but allocators warn they are prepared to downsize commitments to protect the market when necessary, attendees at our ILS NYC 2024 conference heard in New York on February 9th.
7. Howden gets segregated cell & insurance management capabilities in Bermuda & Guernsey
   Expansive broking group Howden has acquired ARM Group Holdings, parent of captive specialist insurance manager Alternative Risk Management. But it’s the potential to utilise this new acquisition for establishing segregated cell structures for collateralised reinsurance and ILS transactions where this could get more interesting.
8. Vesttoo creditors, Clear Blue settle on bankruptcy plan and Vesttoo Bay XIV funds
   The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the Vesttoo bankruptcy case has reached a proposed settlement with fronting specialist Clear Blue Insurance that sees an agreement reached on the bankruptcy plan and in relation to funds specifically held in one of the debtor vehicles, Vesttoo Bay XIV Limited.
9. AIG had “tremendous outcome” at January reinsurance renewals: CEO Zaffino
   Global insurance giant AIG secured a “tremendous outcome” at the January 2024 reinsurance renewals, according to CEO Peter Zaffino who explained that AIG broadened its property catastrophe coverage at 1/1.
10. Munich Re launches global parametric risk transfer business unit
    Munich Re, one of the largest reinsurance companies in the world, has launched a new global unit focused on growing its share in parametric natural catastrophe risk transfer solutions, bringing together expertise from across the business to target this growing area of the market.

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.

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