Reinsurance News

Artex Risk Solutions, one of the largest insurance management firms and a key facilitator in the ILS and collateralised reinsurance space, has expanded its platform with the acquisition of Cayman Islands based Chandler Insurance Management.

In the wake of major losses from hurricanes and earthquakes Bermudian reinsurance firm RenaissanceRe is “fully capitalized” according to its CEO, having raised new funds for its third-party and managed balance-sheets including DaVinciRe and Upsilon RFO.

Singapore has ramped up its focus on developing an insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, taken the radical step of offering an ILS grant that will fund 100% of the upfront costs incurred in issuing catastrophe bonds in the country and setting up a working group to explore opportunities for the country in ILS.

According to sources, U.S. primary military mutual insurer USAA is anticipating losses of between $387 million and $581 million from recent wildfires in northern California, a financial impact which raises the likelihood that some of the riskiest layers of the insurers aggregate Residential Re catastrophe bonds will now be triggered.

Following the losses from third-quarter natural catastrophes, including hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, two of the reinsurance firm owned ILS and collateralized reinsurance investment managers have reported declines in assets under management after paying for losses.

New York stock exchange listed fully collateralized reinsurer Blue Capital Reinsurance Holdings Ltd. has reported a 28.6% hit to its fully converted book value per common share after third-quarter 2017 catastrophes and hurricanes, but the manager is now hoping to position the vehicle to take advantage of higher renewal rates.

Reinsurance firms and ILS funds looking to make the most of any increase in rates at the forthcoming January renewal season are likely to make this one of the most competitive in years, which could ultimately mean that price rises are even more short-lived than currently expected.

The CCRIF SPC (formerly the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility), the parametric disaster insurance facility serving the Caribbean and Central America, has made another payout following torrential October rainfall that affected Trinidad & Tobago.

Storm Herwart impacted Germany on Sunday, particularly the Hamburg area, with hurricane speed wind gusts, a storm surge and torrential rainfall all impacting the region, with the impacts estimated to have caused around EUR 250 million of losses to insurance interests.

Of the $29 billion of total retrocessional reinsurance capacity tracked by broker Aon, an estimated $9 billion, or 31% is collateralised and either completely blown or trapped as a result of recent catastrophe events, according to Robert Bisset, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Global Re Specialty, Aon Benfield.