Cat bond news

Trading of catastrophe bond notes in the secondary market has picked up in the last few weeks as cat bond fund managers and investors look to adjust their portfolios to accommodate the brisk flow of newly issued deals, helped in part by a record over $2 billion of issuance in April 2023, by Artemis’ numbers.

Eclipse Re Ltd., a private syndicated collateralised reinsurance note, private catastrophe bond issuance and reinsurance transformer platform owned and operated by Artex Capital Solutions, has completed the issuance of two private cat bond arrangements totalling almost $18.8 million of risk capital issued.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending May 7th 2023, 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.

Speaking with Artemis in a recent video interview, Jorge Familiar, Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank explained that client country demand for catastrophe bonds and risk management arrangements will likely rise, while he also expects that markets will be there to support these issuances.

Reinsurance carriers participating in the lowest layer of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reinsurance tower are now at-risk of losses, as the NFIP’s claims from hurricane Ian have surpassed $3.9 billion, nearing the $4 billion trigger.

Demonstrating the attactiveness of insurance-linked securities (ILS) investments at this time, the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index has delivered its highest returns for a first-quarter of any year since 2007.

US primary insurer Allstate has brought down the top of its Nationwide excess catastrophe reinsurance tower a little, at its latest renewal, with the program now only extending to $6.924 billion of losses, compared to $7.01 billion at the end of 2022.

GAM Holding AG, the parent company to global asset manager GAM Investments, is to be acquired by specialist fund management group Liontrust, with all of its investment funds set to be rebranded, which will presumably include its large GAM Star Cat Bond Fund and other ILS strategies it manages.

U.S. primary insurer Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company is now seeking to double the size of its new catastrophe bond, with its target for the deal now lifted to $300 million of multi-peril US catastrophe reinsurance, from this Aquila Re I Ltd. (Series 2023-1) transaction.

Insured claims paid by FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) after hurricane Ian have now reached above $3.4 billion, bringing the figure close to the lower-end of its most recent loss estimate for the major storm, Artemis understands.