Alternative reinsurance capital

Alternative reinsurance capital and the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market is going through a period of transition, where there has been some uncertainty, but still Torsten Jeworrek, member of the board of management at Munich Re, believes it is here to stay.

Pension funds in Switzerland have continued to increase their allocations to insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investments, with the ILS asset class becoming a core alternative investment for some of them.

In a sign that reinsurance market pricing has returned to more rational levels, the largest manager of catastrophe and weather insurance linked assets, Nephila Capital, could seek to expand its capacity for the January renewals if price improvements seen continued.

Akinova, the start-up aiming to launch a platform or marketplace for the transfer and trading of insurance and reinsurance risks, has donated some of its data assets related to ILS to global standards-setting body ACORD.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 15th September 2019, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

According to analysts that met with the senior management of AXA Group recently in London, the company has continued to utilise increasing amounts of third-party reinsurance capital to support its natural catastrophe exposures.

Speaking to Artemis from the SCOR lounge in Monte Carlo, Jean-Paul Conoscente, chief executive of SCOR Global P&C, outlined the company’s ambitious plans to place ILS at the heart of the business.

While there was generally positive messaging coming from the reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market at the 63rd Monte Carlo Rendezvous event this week, views on pricing differed as ever.

The prolonged low interest rate environment will maintain the focus on underwriting profitability as the industry moves towards the 1 January 2020 renewals, thinks Mike Van Slooten, Head of Business Intelligence, Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions.

There is a distinction between reinsurance firms that purely rely on retrocession, often from alternative capital, to support their gross underwriting, and those that target earning fee income by managing it for third-party investors, rating agency Moody’s says.