Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) elected to not renew some $648.5 million of traditional reinsurance that expired at July 31st 2024, resulting in its reinsurance and risk transfer program shrinking by 7% to $8.5 billion.

The global IT outage caused by a defective software update from CrowdStrike has highlighted the “persistent uncertainty” in the cyber catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class, rating agency AM Best said, also highlighting that there is uncertainty surrounding the tail and potential for loss development, which it seems is misunderstood.

Catastrophe bond investments are currently offering investors a superior total return, diversification versus other asset classes and currently a lower risk profile than had been seen in recent years, Fitch Ratings has noted.

NN Group, or Nationale-Nederlanden, has now successfully secured its targeted €75 million of collateralised reinsurance from the new Orange Capital Re DAC (Series 2024-1) catastrophe bond issuance, with the notes pricing around 11% below the initial guidance mid-point.

Talanx AG, the German insurance and reinsurance group, has entered the catastrophe bond market for its debut transaction, seeking $100 million or more in parametric Latin America earthquake protection through this Maschpark Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) issuance, Artemis has learned.

Recognising that regulations hinder access to alternative reinsurance solutions including insurance-linked securities (ILS) in the country, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority is consulting with industry, as participants there want easier access to solutions such as catastrophe bonds.

With Beazley reporting nine-month results today, CEO Adrian Cox explained during an analyst call that the company saw an opportunity this summer to bulk-up its cyber protection through industry-loss warranty (ILW) arrangements and PoleStar Re catastrophe bonds.

Jordan Strah has taken on the position of Portfolio Manager for the catastrophe bond funds and other insurance-linked securities (ILS) strategies at Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions.

Having continued to expand their assets under management in recent months, UCITS catastrophe bond funds as a group have now grown their share of the overall cat bond market to a new high, at 27% of risk capital supplied.

Speaking at the 20th Singapore International Reinsurance Conference (SIRC), Mr Gan Kim Yong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry, and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, explained that multilateral development banks have a key role to play in bringing scale to insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuances in Asia.