capital markets

On still improving prospects for the sector, hedge fund specialist manager K2 Advisors has updated its view to “strongly overweight” for catastrophe bond and private insurance-linked securities (ILS) investments, saying that pricing indications for the January renewals look strong as well.

Catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) new issuance continues apace in 2021, with the total issued and tracked by Artemis so far this year now above $16.1 billion, meaning that a new annual issuance record is expected to be reached imminently.

The Howden insurance and reinsurance broking group is expected to launch a new capital markets focused reinsurance unit in Bermuda and has hired Darren Redhead from Lancashire Capital Management to lead at least the third-party capital aspect of the initiative, it’s understood.

As much as $1.5 trillion of pension fund and private capital could be unlocked to cover climate related risks and perils according to broking group Howden, which is calling on the risk transfer industry to  “change insurance for (social) good.”

The net profitability gap between Bermuda and non-Bermuda incorporated companies may narrow over time given the expected passage of the OECD-driven multilateral agreement to establish a 15% global minimum tax rate, according to Fitch Ratings.

Tremor Technologies, the insurtech with a technology-based programmatic insurance and reinsurance risk transfer marketplace, has announced the launch of Marketplace 2.0, a new iteration of its software that has been redesigned with risk transfer users in mind.

Taussig Capital Re has been launched as a Puerto Rico licensed reinsurance company, with a promise to bring non-traditional sources of capital to insurer and reinsurer clients.

Mortgage insurance group NMI Holdings, Inc. has returned to the capital markets to sponsor its second mortgage insurance-linked notes issuance of the year, targeting an almost $364 million source of collateralised mortgage reinsurance with an Oaktown Re VII Ltd. transaction.

Beazley has now received in principle approval from Lloyd’s to establish its planned ESG focused consortium that will sit under its Market Facilities unit and leverage some third-party capital to underwrite risks that have been scored against environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics.

Florida’s homeowners insurance market is experiencing “unsutainable” conditions and the consistency of loss across the marketplace is seen as “staggering”, according to the CEO of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corporation Barry Gilway.