Cat bond news

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending April 14th 2024, 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.

The Ambassador mutual catastrophe bond fund strategy has continued to grow its assets under management in recent months, adding $63.3 million since we last reported on it, to reach $191 million in net assets under management.

While the pricing of cat bond notes stabilised somewhat in the final quarter of 2023, persistently firm reinsurance and retrocession rates saw investors achieve higher risk-adjusted pricing throughout the year, according to Artemis’ data.

The giant more than $9 billion portfolio of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investments managed by PGGM, the Dutch pension investment manager that allocates the largest amount to the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market on behalf of end-client the Dutch pension PFZW, delivered a record 18.9% return in 2023.

The recently settled $125 million Charles River Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) catastrophe bond is a valuable addition to the reinsurance arrangements that support MGU ShoreOne Insurance Managers and carrier American European Insurance Company’s efforts to address the coastal flood risk protection gap, the two firms have said.

The catastrophe bond market continues on its positive trajectory in 2024, with robust demand on both sides of the trade. But with spreads and yields having become more “normalised” in recent months, cat bonds are now much more attractive to potential sponsors, Florian Steiger, CEO of Icosa Investments has said.

New York based alternative risk premia focused investment manager Stone Ridge has now grown its mutual insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund strategy assets under management (AUM) back to above $4 billion for the first time since 2020.

Slide Insurance Company, the full-stack property insurtech company founded by Bruce Lucas in Florida, now counts roughly 70% of its reinsurance as being on a multi-year basis, thanks to the completion in recent days of its largest and $210 million Purple Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) catastrophe bond transaction.

The assets under management of the main catastrophe bond funds in the UCITS format increased by 4% over the first-quarter of 2024, to reach a new high of almost $11.4 billion by the end of the period.

American Coastal Insurance Company is set to upsize its new Armor Re II Ltd. (Series 2024-1) Florida named storm catastrophe bond to $200 million, while the notes are set to price within the initial price guidance range, Artemis has learned.