Insurance Linked Investments

Bermuda headquartered insurance and reinsurance firm Arch Capital Group has increased the amount of third-party capital under its management in insurance-linked securities (ILS) related assets by 20% to $600 million in the last year.

Bernina Re Ltd. has been established and launched by the Credit Suisse Insurance Linked Strategies Ltd. team as a new reinsurance company, with the goal that Bernina Re should become the flagship reinsurance platform for the Credit Suisse ILS offering.

As the catastrophe bond market looks to expand outside of the natural catastrophe space, terrorism risk has been highlighted as a potential growth avenue for the insurance-linked securities (ILS) sector, but while new perils bring diversification benefits, it’s essential the risk is quantifiable.

Absent further major losses hitting global reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) markets this year, the expectation now is that rates are likely to lose any ground gained at renewals so far this year and return to a slow softening trend in 2019, according to analysts at Deutsche Bank.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), a sovereign wealth investment fund owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and tasked with investing funds on behalf of the Government of the Emirate, has been confirmed as investing in a significant chunk of pension risk transfer specialists Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC).

An initial public offering (IPO) could be on the cards for Watford Re, the third-party capital backed total-return reinsurance venture part-owned by Bermudian specialist re/insurer Arch Capital and asset manager Highbridge Principal Strategies, as its parent holding company said it was evaluating options for a listing.

It’s crucial the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market learns from the impacts of 2017 catastrophe events, but despite the losses, the outlook for the ILS asset class is stronger than it has been for some years, according to Zurich headquartered insurance and reinsurance linked investment manager, Twelve Capital.

There’s opportunity for insurance-linked securities (ILS) capacity to grow dramatically into other areas, and while investor response to 2017 events shows they clearly remain attracted and committed to the space, increased manager transparency would be welcomed, according to a report from Clear Path Analysis.

Tony Belisle, the Chief Executive Officer of Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd., has sought to demonstrate his alignment with investors in his firms stock exchange listed retrocessional reinsurance ILS fund strategy by acquiring 1.5 million shares across all classes.

Pierre Michel, the General Manager for Reinsurance and International Operations at Covea Group, recently hailed insurance-linked securities (ILS) as a natural diversifier of its reinsurance capacity, following the firm’s first catastrophe bond issuance.