2017 Atlantic tropical storm season

The fixed and multi-year pricing of its catastrophe bonds acts as an effective hedge against future reinsurance rate rises, according to Heritage Insurance CEO Bruce Lucas, something that is especially pertinent as major hurricane Irma tracks towards the United States.

Reflecting just how well capitalised the reinsurance industry is, analysts at Morgan Stanley said today that they believe that even the aggregate industry losses from hurricane Irma and hurricane Harvey combined could still only be an earnings event for the sector, rather than a capital event.

The market for live cat (live catastrophe) trading on the back of the approaching major hurricane Irma has not yet sprung into life, with plenty of potential buyers looking for last-minute protection but only a few trades and a market that is trying to find the right pricing levels to get deals executed.

It’s very early days to speculate on landfall for major hurricane Irma, which became a Category 5 monster storm this afternoon with winds of 180 mph, but should the forecast track prove correct and Irma make landfall in Florida it is expected that it would hit reinsurance interests hard, according to KBW.

Latest hurricane Irma updates can be found in this new article. Major category 5 hurricane Irma is currently heading west across the Atlantic, with winds of 180 mph and a forecast that shows maintained intensity and a potential threat to the United States coastline by this weekend, including south Florida, but with some uncertainty in […]

Hurricane Harvey made landfall around 03:00 UTC having intensified further as it approached the Texas coastline to a Category 4 storm with 130 mph sustained winds and a minimum central pressure of 938mb, according to NOAA data.

Here’s a quick look at just how much of the near $30 billion of outstanding catastrophe bonds could be exposed to a major Texas hurricane, be that hurricane Harvey that is rapidly approaching Category 3 on approach to the state, or any other major storm.

As hurricane Harvey continues to bear down on the Texas coastline, currently packing 110 mph winds as a strong Category 2, almost Category 3 storm, analysts at J.P. Morgan have taken a look at the exposure in the region and estimated that as much as 50% of an insurance industry loss could end up covered […]

Hurricane Harvey continues to intensify over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico on its way to Texas by the weekend. Now Category 3, with sustained winds of 125 mph as at a 21:00 UTC 25th August update, hurricane Harvey poses a grave threat to the region, from storm surge, wind, rainfall and expected […]

Harvey, still a tropical storm although not for much longer, is now forecast to become hurricane Harvey in the coming hours and to reach Category 3 major hurricane strength by the time it makes landfall on the middle Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico.