Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

The Ambassador catastrophe bond mutual fund strategy has now surpassed the $100 million in assets under management (AUM) level needed to be recognised as a qualified institutional buyer (QIB), with further capital raised and allocated to new catastrophe bond positions in the last quarter of record.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) is back to reopen the 144a catastrophe bond market during its traditional summer wind season pause in issuance, seeking $150 million or more in earthquake reinsurance protection via a new Ursa Re Ltd. (Series 2023-2) transaction.

This video of the fourth session of the day at our recent Artemis ILS Asia 2023 conference, held in Singapore on July 13th 2023, features a panel discussion about insurance-linked securities (ILS) related developments in Singapore, with its ILS regulatory regime and the future opportunity there.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) capital overall is only growing back slowly, with some fresh capital raising largely just replacing that which had been lost due to catastrophe events or investor redemptions and exits, rating agency AM Best explained in a new report.

Speaking this afternoon during a renewals focused panel discussion hosted by Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions, Sven Althoff, Member of the Executive Board for P&C at Hannover Re, explained that introducing event-based wordings to cyber insurance could open the doors to broader capital markets and ILS involvement.

US primary insurer Allstate has reported yet another costly month of catastrophe losses for August 2023, reporting some $641 million of cat losses for events that occurred in the month, with around half coming from the Maui wildfire.

The retrocessional reinsurance market capital supply remains disciplined, which means capacity for retro protections is still not abundant and so this has been creating some difficulty for reinsurance firms that have relied on it in the past, Fitch Ratings has said.

A study undertaken by reinsurance industry participants and consultants in Germany has proposed a three-layered approach to managing peak disaster risks, with the industry using catastrophe bonds to diversify risk into the capital markets, while the government would be expected to take the tail risks of really significant catastrophic events.

Historically, the reinsurance industry has picked up the tab at the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous event, in a demonstration of the capacity providers keeness to maintain the good relationships they have with cedents and hold onto shares in their renewal programs.

In the wake of Tom Johansmeyer, the former Head of Verisk unit PCS, joining the Ardonagh Group reinsurance broking division Inver Re in Bermuda, the company has now launched an integrated global index practice and sees an advantage in leveraging his experience in ILW’s.