Reinsurance News

The severe flooding event in Europe that particularly affected the Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy in May 2023 is now estimated to have resulted in approximately €377 million of insurance industry losses, according to PERILS.

Cyber reinsurance capacity needs to grow threefold by 2030 to support the cyber insurance segment in fulfilling its potential, and focus is needed to maintain momentum in making third-party capital a key component of the cyber market’s capital structure, broker Howden has said.

Stable, a technology company that has built an impressive business on the back of its index-based platform for commodity hedging, is to expand its scope further into parametric insurance and has launched a Bermuda domiciled Class 3A insurer to help it share in the underwriting economics.

Reinsurance broker Inver Re has announced that its CEO Steve Hearn is to depart the company and parent the Ardonagh Group this summer, with a search for a replacement now underway.

The retrocession market was more orderly at 2023’s mid-year renewal season, with capacity less constrained and as a result more buyers being satisfied, but still catastrophe retro reinsurance rates have risen by 30% to 60% and higher in some cases, broker Gallagher Re explained.

Global Parametrics, the parametric and index-based disaster risk transfer company, has partnered with broking group Howden to deliver an expansion to its parametric insurance scheme with One Acre Fund for smallholder farmers in Africa.

Australian insurance giant Suncorp has completed its catastrophe reinsurance renewal for the coming year, but has clearly felt the cost of a hard market, with the tower shrinking, Suncorp’s retention rising, the cost being up and, perhaps most notable, its long-standing aggregate cover has not been renewed.

The CCRIF SPC (formerly known as the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility), has announced a further US $4.7 million in funding from the European Union which will help to subsidise the parametric disaster insurance of its member countries through the 2023 policy year.

Reinsurance firms took the opportunity to deploy more capital at the mid-year renewals, while the ILS market is seeing increasing interest, as returns improved and investor appetite recovers, according to broker Gallagher Re’s CEO Tom Wakefield.

The insurance and reinsurance industry loss estimate for the Kahramanmaras Earthquake Sequence that struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023 has been pegged at $5 billion by CRESTA, making it the largest international insured catastrophe loss event of 2023 so far.