Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities news

We’ve been busily canvassing opinions and thoughts on hurricane Sandy’s potential impact from our contacts and friends in the marketplace today. Sandy is still threatening to be the worst northeast hurricane in memory, larger in size, with stronger winds and threatening a larger storm surge than last years hurricane Irene. Reinsurers and the catastrophe bond […]

For the first time in a number of months both of the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices have declined in the last week. It’s rare for both the price return index and total return index to drop in a single week, in fact the last time we saw that was at the end of […]

Swiss Re’s latest transaction in the catastrophe bond market, Mythen Re Ltd. (Series 2012-2), has been given its preliminary ratings by S&P this morning. The novel cat bond deal is the first to bring a tranche of notes with exposure to both hurricane and mortality risk to market. Last week we wrote that one of […]

Last week was dominated by three new catastrophe bonds which all priced (details on them all can be found in our Deal Directory) and then hurricane Sandy took over to dominate the markets thoughts. We hope all our U.S. east coast readers stay safe as Sandy approaches! As always, you can read every market news […]

Hurricane Sandy continues to bear down on the U.S. eastern seaboard with forecasters still predicting a convergence of three weather systems that could turn Sandy into a ‘perfect storm’ (or Frankenstorm if you prefer). Sandy is forecast to converge with a low pressure system moving in from the west and cold Arctic air coming from […]

Thanks to the three latest catastrophe bonds of 2012 which all finished doing the investor rounds and priced this week (Mythen Re Ltd. (Series 2012-2), Atlas Reinsurance VII Ltd and Queen Street VII Re Ltd), the total volume of cat bonds issued this year has already surpassed the total issued in 2011. With more than two […]

Here’s a quick update on the latest multi-peril catastrophe bond from SCOR, Atlas Reinsurance VII Limited, which we wrote about yesterday to reveal the doubling in size and lowering of price guidance. The transaction priced late yesterday and in the end SCOR took the maximum size of the deal while pricing came in right at […]

Another of the catastrophe bonds which have yet to close has experienced strong demand resulting in a tightening of spreads and pricing being reduced before close. Queen Street VII Re Ltd. is the latest cat bond from regular sponsor Munich Re. Through the issuance of Queen Street VII, Munich Re are seeking a source of […]

Meadowbrook Insurance Group, a U.S. specialty property and casualty insurance group, has tasked itself with looking at ‘reinsurance alternatives’ in an effort to resolve a review of its ratings instigated by A.M. Best. Best has placed the financial strength ratings and issuer credit ratings of Meadowbrook subsidiaries and Meadowbrook itself’s ICR under review with negative […]

Yet again a catastrophe bond has increased in size during marketing and the expected pricing on the transaction has dropped to, and below, the originally marketed range. This has been a trend in the cat bond market this year, with cat bonds regularly increasing in size and investors accepting lower coupon payments than a deal […]