Cat bond news

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 21st September 2014, on catastrophe bonds, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics, from the last seven days on Artemis. To ensure you never miss a thing  subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates.

The United Nations continues to move forwards, albeit slowly, its goal to address the issue of “loss and damages” from natural disasters and weather related climate risks, and catastrophe bonds, alongside other risk transfer tools, are set to feature.

It’s no surprise to see that rating agency Standard & Poor’s has now placed the $100m MultiCat Mexico Ltd. (Series 2012-1) Class C catastrophe bond notes on CreditWatch with negative implications as they sit at risk of loss due to hurricane Odile.

The fate of the MultiCat Mexico Ltd. (Series 2012-1) catastrophe bond is not as clear-cut as it seems. We understand that investors must wait for confirmed data on hurricane Odile to be released by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) which can take some weeks.

At German reinsurance firm Munich Re’s annual Monte Carlo insurance-linked securities (ILS) roundtable event yesterday, first time sponsors of catastrophe bonds and other ILS market experts discussed some of the pro’s and con’s cedents encounter.

The reinsurance market of the future will be reshaped as growing pools of third-party capital are increasingly leveraged, alongside ILS structures, to bring efficiency into the reinsurance industry, according to broker Guy Carpenter.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) specialist law firm Sidley Austin LLP warns that issuers of catastrophe bonds could become subject to payment of withholding tax on U.S. Money Market Fund dividends after an exception ceases to apply.

The asset management arm of French reinsurance firm SCOR, SCOR Global Investments, has announced that it has grown its insurance-linked assets to $460m and achieved a net average annual return to investors of 7.2% since inception three years ago.

Across the peak catastrophe zones, insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds and their managers have had a real impact on pricing and this looks set to continue as ILS capitalises on its lower cost of capital, a survey undertaken by Willis Re found.

Gibraltar’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), has finalized and published its guidelines for insurance-linked securities (ILS) following a consultation process with input from ILS experts from around the world.