Reinsurance News

AXA Climate, the parametric specialist risk transfer unit of global insurance and reinsurance company AXA, has partnered with Dutch satellite technology firm VanderSat on a range of products to enable drought and soil moisture related exposures to be hedged.

The month of March 2020 saw billions of dollars of economic and insured losses caused by a number of outbreaks of severe and convective weather, characterised by hail and tornadoes as well, according to Aon’s Impact Forecasting.

As our sister publication Reinsurance News reported yesterday afternoon, Lloyd’s has asked its members that have been hit by sizeable losses as a result of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic to accelerate capital injections with the goal of stabilising the markets capital position.

Stone Ridge Asset Management, the alternative risk premia focused mutual fund manager that has specific reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) strategies, significantly expanded its allocations of capital to Lloyd’s of London syndicates in 2018 with its investments deployed into business amounting to almost $250 million of gross premiums.

Peak Reinsurance Company Limited (Peak Re), the Hong Kong headquartered, Fosun backed global reinsurer, aims to become the Asian leader in insurance-linked securities (ILS) with its acquisition of Lutece, while also benefiting from a new foothold in the Bermuda market, CEO Franz Josef Hahn explained to Artemis.

The CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd., the listed retrocession focused investment fund strategy managed by Markel CATCo Investment Management, is set to buy-back almost $30 million of shares in a first compulsory purchase and the purchase is being made at NAV, which is well-above the current listed share prices for the fund.

Silent pandemic risk as akin to silent cyber. It’s an exposure that is potentially secreted deep inside numerous lines of insurance and reinsurance business, with claims governed by contractual fineries and wordings. As a result it’s an exposure that is hard to quantify, but that may require hedging.

Global Atlantic Financial Group Limited, a leading United States life, retirement and annuities insurance and reinsurance company, has launched an intriguing co-investment vehicle named Ivy, which will operate as a kind of sidecar structure and is funded with $1 billion to invest in life and annuity reinsurance deals.

The ongoing legal action to force pandemic business interruption and shutdown claims from the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak into property or catastrophe insurance and reinsurance programs may be tempered by an appreciation that this would significantly impact the global re/insurance market, A.M. Best believes.

Insurance and reinsurance companies need to adapt to a “dynamic risk landscape” to incorporate socio-economic factors, climate change research and risk mitigation in their modelling, in order to keep weather risks insurable, Swiss Re warned today.