CATCo Investment Management, the specialist Bermuda based reinsurance-linked investment business who manage around $2 billion of retrocessional reinsurance portfolios for their clients, have said today that they expect their fund, the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund, to deliver a net return in excess of 20% this year. The forecast was caveated with the statement that achieving […]
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Yesterday we revealed the news that the world’s largest reinsurer, Germany headquartered Munich Re, was working on plans to launch an insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond fund. The story generated a lot of interest, becoming the most viewed of the day, and as details were scant we reached out to Munich Re to request some […]
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The longevity swap market has been notably quiet in 2012, as broader economic factors seemed to put a stop to transactions in the space after a relatively busy 2011. Now it seems that things might begin to pick up as it has been reported that Heineken UK, a brewer of beer and cider products, is […]
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European Commissioner Michel Barnier, who is responsible for the implementation of the Solvency II regulatory rules, has proposed to halt the talks discussing the issue until a new study can be undertaken into the impact of Solvency II on insurers and reinsurers. The talks between European member states and the European Parliament appear to have […]
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German reinsurer Munich Re, the largest reinsurance company in the world, is considering deepening its involvement in the insurance-linked securities market by launching an ILS fund. Munich Re are already very involved in the ILS and catastrophe bond space, as a sponsor of cat bonds regularly using ILS as a risk transfer tool, their Risk […]
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From a sponsors perspective, be that an insurer, reinsurer or perhaps even a corporate sponsor, there are many beneficial features to the catastrophe bond. They can be structured to closely complement existing sources of reinsurance or retrocessional cover, they can provide capacity where it perhaps was not available through the traditional reinsurance markets and they […]
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Accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is just one of the measures used to identify how active or severe a tropical cyclone or hurricane season has been. It’s a measure used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to express the activity of individual tropical storms and entire seasons, using an approximation of the energy used […]
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The insurance-linked securities and catastrophe bond market has been going from strength to strength in the last twelve months. We often write about the successes of the market, the growth that is being experienced and the burgeoning interest from both potential sponsors and return-seeking investors. The market seems very healthy but as well as cheerleading […]
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It’s time for another of our regular fortnightly looks at the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices (our last article here) to see what they can tell us about movements in pricing and returns of outstanding catastrophe bonds and the general sentiment of the cat bond and insurance-linked securities marketplace. When we last looked it […]
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Despite the severe catastrophe loss burden from 2011, which saw a number of catastrophe bonds impacted by events in Japan and the tornadoes in the U.S., the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market continued to provide investors with competitive returns when compared to other similarly rated securities. These events caused a relatively steep dip in returns immediately […]
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The value of U.S. property exposed to wildfires is the subject of the latest report from modeling, data and analytics firm CoreLogic. The CoreLogic Wildfire Hazard Risk Report identifies more than 740,000 residences across 13 western U.S. states which CoreLogic says are currently at high or very high risk of wildfire damage. CoreLogic says that […]
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Last week saw the annual reinsurance industry event in Monte Carlo, the Rendez-vous de Septembre, take place. Hopefully those of you who attended will have been able to keep up with the market news but if you didn’t our regular monday catch up will help. The last week was extremely busy with many companies releasing […]
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The catastrophe bond most at risk of default from hurricane Isaac was the $125m Pelican Re Ltd. Pelican Re is an indemnity cat bond, providing cover to Louisiana Citizens, the property insurer of last resort for the state. The reason Pelican Re was felt to be most risky is that the indemnity trigger is set […]
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The latest catastrophe bond to hit the market in 2012 has now completed successfully and been rated. The first Euro denominated cat bond of the year, Eurus III Ltd. has been issued successfully on behalf of reinsurer Hannover Re (and certain subsidiaries). The Eurus III cat bond will provide them with a source of European […]
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