As the world continues to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we remain locked-down at home and unable to hold in-person events, so sadly our fifth ILS NYC conference has to be virtually held.

Central Asian countries will benefit from a better understanding of their natural disaster risks, which in time could lead to greater use of risk transfer, insurance and reinsurance capacity in the region, as the World Bank supports a multi-peril risk assessment project for the region.

California electrical utility Southern California Edison has agreed a $2.2 billion payout to settle all insurance subrogation claims from pending litigation related to the 2018 Woolsey Fire and expects to exhaust its remaining $700 million of wildfire coverage as a result.

Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc., the Florida headquartered and nationally expansive U.S. property casualty insurer, has pre-announced an expectation that it will report $41.5 million of catastrophe and severe weather losses for the fourth-quarter of 2020.

Global insurance and reinsurance group Everest Re has pre-announced a range of charges being applied to its fourth-quarter and 2020 results, due to catastrophe losses, continued impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and a $400 million reserve charge driven by social inflation trends in casualty lines.

The second parametric earthquake catastrophe bond Sierra Ltd. (Series 2021-1), sponsored by specialist mortgage security focused investment manager Bayview Asset Management, LLC, has now been successfully upsized to $200 million, while pricing for each of the two tranches of notes has settled at the bottom end of reduced guidance.

Universal Insurance Holdings, the Florida headquartered, nationally expansive primary insurance carrier, has announced the hiring of Jason Burns as the new President of its reinsurance intermediary Blue Atlantic.

Oneglobal Broking, the commercial insurance and reinsurance brokerage owned by investor JC Flowers, has opened its first Bermuda broking office and announced two key hires.

A European Commission study looking at the insurability of nuclear third-party liability risks (NTPL) and availability of capacity to support them, found that insurance-linked securities (ILS) market capital would be available, under the right structures and terms.

Flood risk insurtech company FloodFlash, which offers an innovative sensor-based approach to support parametric flood insurance triggers, has beaten its own record on rapid claims payment, paying out to one policyholder within ten hours for the impacts of flooding during UK storm Christoph.

The industry sees a high chance that in order for Aon’s acquisition of rival Willis Towers Watson to go ahead, divestment will be required and a sale of reinsurance broking unit Willis Re is seen as a likely outcome.

The global catastrophe protection gap reached 64% in 2020 as roughly $171 billion of natural catastrophe and severe weather losses were not covered by insurance and reinsurance, one of the largest brokers Aon has said.