PartnerRe announced last month that a portion of their losses due to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan would be due to insurance-linked securities. At the time we wrote that it was likely that they had an investment in the Muteki Ltd. cat bond (which is expected to be a total loss). Now PartnerRe have increased their loss estimate and announced how much of it is due to catastrophe bonds.
Their initial loss estimate was for $500m of exposure to the disaster in Japan including non-life exposures and insurance-linked securities. Now in a recent press release PartnerRe have upped that estimate to $730m since they received new information from a large cedant in the region. So almost a 50% increase in their loss estimate, which does leave us wondering whether other reinsurers will up their estimates too.
Yesterday, PartnerRe announced their first quarter results and in the press release detailed their loss from insurance-linked securities (catastrophe bonds) due to the earthquake in Japan. They have disclosed a $49m loss due to their interests in catastrophe bonds and ILS which were impacted by the earthquake in Japan.
It’s assumed that this is through an investment in Muteki although it is possible that PartnerRe have either issued or have an investment in a private placement cat bond with exposure to earthquakes in Japan. It’s impossible to know whether any private cat bond transactions exist with that exposure and whether they have been impacted.
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