Reinsurance News

Welcome to the first Artemis ILS Bermuda Executive Roundtable, in which our participants discuss burning issues affecting the sector, Bermuda, with an eye on innovation and what the future might hold for ILS in Bermuda, and beyond.

Risk modelling firm RMS has released a new cyber risk accumulation management tool and reporting framework as it seeks to encourage insurance, reinsurance and the ILS markets to become more comfortable putting out larger limits to cover cyber risk exposures.

Financial market investment volatility and a challenging reinsurance landscape negatively impacted the performance of hedge fund backed reinsurers during 2015, but internal hybrid, investment-oriented vehicles continue to gain momentum, according to Fitch Ratings.

Flood Re, the UK’s government-backed reinsurance scheme designed to make flood insurance more accessible to property owners, has successfully added another roughly £800m of cover to the £1.29 billion of retrocession it secured in 2015, to complete its £2.1 billion ($3.025bn) reinsurance program.

The value proposition of an ILS and third-party reinsurance capital manager operated from within a global insurance and reinsurance group, such as seen with AlphaCat as part of Validus, is attracting investors to change their ILS manager, according to CEO of Validus Ed Noonan.

Credit Suisse is making progress in its mission to leverage the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and the structure of a catastrophe bond as a way to secure risk capital to back its operational risk insurance needs, with this unusual deal now marketing as Operational Re Ltd., we understand.

The reinsurance industry has described the growth of alternative capital as a “highly disruptive” force, but owing to its relatively small share of the overall market it’s fair to say that pricing in the sector is still driven by traditional sources of capacity, says Henry Kingham.

The differences in hedge fund reinsurance investment portfolios was again evident in the first month of 2016, with Greenlight Re reporting a positive investment return, while Third Point Re fell to an investment loss in January.

Reinsurance and retrocession linked investment manager Markel CATCo Investment Management Ltd. said it will protect new capital received in recent allocations made by investors from legacy loss events in 2015 that it has established side pockets for.

According to Willis Towers Watson the energy industry faces a huge insurance shortfall, leaving many of the world’s largest energy companies exposed as they often find it hard to secure the level of insurance protection they really require.