Insurance Linked Investments

GAM Holding AG, the parent company to global asset manager GAM Investments, is to be acquired by specialist fund management group Liontrust, with all of its investment funds set to be rebranded, which will presumably include its large GAM Star Cat Bond Fund and other ILS strategies it manages.

In reporting its results this morning, Hiscox Group disclosed that its Hiscox ILS business experienced $148.4 million in net outflows of capital during the first-quarter of 2023, which the company said was “consistent with our expectations of a general trend in the sector.”

The property catastrophe reinsurance market is “in a very attractive phase” and, for RenaissanceRe, reinsurance as a whole is currently seen as more attractive right now, with its CEO Kevin O’Donnell saying he expects this to be the case for the foreseeable future.

The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) of the Bank of England, the main financial regulator, continues to place great emphasis on making its insurance-linked securities (ILS) regulatory regime a success and is now promising “accelerated authorisation” for what it terms “credible” sponsors.

Lancashire Holdings, the specialty insurance and reinsurance group, has added experienced and well-known industry veteran Bryan Joseph of Vario Partners as a non-executive director.

Twelve Capital, the insurance, reinsurance, catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) focused investment manager, has highlighted the importance of impact grading and ESG scoring, while finding in a study that the top-rated companies tend to outperform those that score more poorly.

When it comes to underwriting cyber risks, capital, whether traditional insurance and reinsurance, or alternative from the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, “has to be rewarded”, Matt Harrison from risk modelling and analytics specialist Moody’s RMS, told us in our latest Artemis Live interview.

RenaissanceRe, the global reinsurance company and third-party capital manager, continued to have great success in raising funds from third-party investors for its range of joint-venture and insurance-linked securities (ILS) structures, adding just over $767 million so far in 2023, with its Medici catastrophe bond fund strategy taking more than half the inflows.

Vesttoo, the insurance capital markets focused insurtech, has announced the hiring of experienced alternative investments specialist Jon Ewing to lead the development of an insurance-linked securities (ILS) marketplace.

Inver Re, the Ardonagh Group’s reinsurance broking arm, has made a key hire in taking well-known industry executive Tom Johansmeyer from Verisk’s PCS unit, to become the brokers’ new Global Head of Index products, Artemis has learned.