Cat bond news

The amount of alternative capital in the reinsurance industry has reached another new high at the middle of 2024, with capital allocated to alternative and insurance-linked securities (ILS) structures now reaching $110 billion, according to Aon.

The agenda is now complete for our upcoming catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market conference in Singapore, ILS Asia 2024, which takes place on July 11th at the Suntec Convention Centre. Register soon if you want to join us.

The hard market in reinsurance is different this time around, with no evident lack of capital or capacity and this is just one factor that has meant we aren’t seeing a wave of new reinsurance startups, something broker Gallagher Re’s Brian Shea says is likely to persist, except perhaps in the casualty space.

The World Bank has now facilitated and issued over US $4.8 billion in catastrophe bonds across 17 transactions we have covered over the years, with $745 million issued over the course of just a few weeks in 2024 to support Mexico and Jamaica’s disaster risk transfer and financing needs.

The Government of Puerto Rico’s Autoridad de Asesoría Financiera y Agencia Fiscal (Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority) has secured $282 million of parametric disaster insurance cover, with the recent $85 million Puerto Rico Parametric Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) catastrophe bond seen as a key component that opens the door to the capital markets.

SCOR, the France-headquartered global reinsurance company, continues to build out its risk partnership and third-party capital capabilities, with the latest hire to come to light being Tony Nguyen, an experienced insurance-linked securities (ILS) structuring and investment banking executive who joins the reinsurer from Goldman Sachs.

Hannover Re, the German global reinsurance company, has now successfully upsized its latest retro catastrophe bond, securing $140 million of retrocessional cover from the 3264 Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) issuance.

Everest Re has has now settled for $200 million in multi-peril per-occurrence retrocessional reinsurance from its new Kilimanjaro II Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) catastrophe bond, securing that coverage at reduced pricing as the spreads settled well-below guidance, Artemis has learned.

Groupama, the French mutual insurance and reinsurance company, is back in the 144A catastrophe bond market for the first time since 2013, seeking €150 million in windstorm reinsurance protection from the capital markets through a Quercus Re DAC 2024-1 catastrophe bond issuance, Artemis has learned.

This video features the final insurance-linked securities (ILS) expert panel of the day at our Artemis ILS NYC 2024 conference, which was held in New York on February 9th 2024.