Reinsurance News

According to the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) insurance and reinsurance industry losses from Cyclone Debbie are now estimated to be nearing AU $ 1.6 billion (US $1.2 billion), with more than $1 billion of claims now paid and over 85% closed.

Lloyd’s of London focused insurer and managing agency Barbican Insurance Group is reportedly raising funds for a new collateralised reinsurance vehicle that will offer stop-loss style retrocession products to Lloyd’s syndicates, with an initial fundraise of around $200 million (£160m) mooted.

Speaking today, Lancashire holdings CEO Alex Maloney said that it is unlikely that all ILS capacity can race back into the market in time for the key January reinsurance renewals, but explained that his firms Kinesis vehicle will be ready to reload for any opportunities that arise.

The insurance and reinsurance industry loss estimate for recent European windstorm Herwart is rising, with Aon’s catastrophe risk modeling arm Impact Forecasting putting the industry impact from the storm that hit northern Germany and parts of central Europe at EUR 300 million (approx US $350 million).

Bermudian reinsurance firm and third-party reinsurance capital manager RenaissanceRe put out a warning that it expects the California wildfires to result in a financial impact to the firm that will be “significant and could be material” which could suggest some of its third-party capital vehicles may also be exposed.

While reinsurance firms are all forecasting big price rises, across loss affected lines and the rest of the market, big primary insurers are telling their shareholders that the cost of their reinsurance is unlikely to rise significantly and in the case of Allstate this is put down to the influence of the capital markets.

The impacts of recent hurricanes is evident in the latest returns of the Mercury investible Catastrophe Risk Index (or MiCRIX for short), an index that tracks the performance of a diversified portfolio of peak peril ILW’s.

Global reinsurance player Swiss Re reported its third-quarter results today, revealing a net loss of $468 million for the first nine months of 2017, as well as an ambition to take advantage of improved pricing, although perhaps not enough improvement as it still intends to return excess capital.

Specialty insurance and reinsurance group Lancashire Holdings Limited reported its results this morning and as anticipated losses suffered from recent catastrophe events by its third-party reinsurance capital unit Kinesis Capital Management are reflected in the numbers.

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) is facing losses of up to $6 billion due to the impacts of hurricane Irma, according to actuarial estimates, with the loss being contained within the FHCF’s funding and not significant enough to trigger its reinsurance program.