Reinsurance News

Primary insurance and reinsurance group Chubb Ltd. continued to make greater use of its total-return vehicle ABR Reinsurance Ltd. in 2017, with the amount of premiums ceded through to ABR Re up around 19%, while the vehicle also took a significant increase in losses from the hurricanes and other catastrophe events.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has reported an increased number of insurance and reinsurance company registrations on the island in the first two months of 2018, which was helped by an increase in the number of special purpose insurers (SPI’s) being registered for ILS transactions.

Winter storms and severe weather in March across the United States is likely to drive around $3 billion in economic losses, with two-thirds likely to fall to insurance and reinsurance, translating to an industry loss of roughly $2 billion for the month, according to Impact Forecasting.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), a financial institution that supports economic growth and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, has hired Thomas Kessler, a long-time Swiss Re executive, into a newly created role focused on disaster risk insurance and financing.

A recent cyber hack attack on U.S. retailer Hudson’s Bay, owner of the Saks and Lord & Taylor store brands, is expected to cause a loss to insurance and perhaps reinsurance interests and as a result Property Claim Services (PCS) has designated the event and will produce an estimate of insured losses for it.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), the largest private pension fund in Canada with around $189.5 billion of assets under management, has maintained its key ILS investment relationships with Nephila Capital and RenaissanceRe through the last year.

Hannover Re may have recovered as much as $815 million from its retrocessionaires for losses from the major catastrophe events of 2017 and with the capital markets cited as playing a “key role” in its retro arrangements, it stands to reason that investors will have taken a reasonable sized share.

U.S. primary insurer Chubb has reported that its catastrophe losses from the first-quarter of 2018 are estimated to be $380 million net of reinsurance and before tax, which includes the impacts from the California mudslides.

Reinsurance firm Swiss Re said this morning that it anticipates that reinsurance premiums will grow at a rate of 5% per-annum over the next five years at least, providing it with plenty of opportunity to put its strategy to work, but despite that opportunity a deal with a major investor remains under discussion.

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has confirmed its intention to enter the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market for the first time for a mid-year 2018 transfer of risk from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), to secure capital markets backed source of flood reinsurance using a catastrophe bond.