cat bonds

Hurricane Irma’s threat to Florida saw the catastrophe bond market drop 16% yesterday, their biggest single days decline on record, as the ILS market and its investors recognised the severe threat the major hurricane poses to their investments.

Updated – 11:00 AM UTC on September 10th: Major Hurricane Irma continues on its path towards the state of Florida, slightly weakened after striking Cuba but still with winds sustained at 130 mph with higher gusts, and a chance of some further intensification before it strikes the Florida Keys in the coming hours.

According to a Bloomberg article one of the mutual ILS funds managed by New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management has fallen 8% on the approach of hurricane Irma, as the manager marked it down in expectation of losses.

There are many catastrophe bonds that are potentially at risk from a major landfalling Hurricane Irma, with as much as $14 billion of the outstanding cat bond market holding some level of exposure to Florida or U.S. east coast named storms and hurricanes.

In the latest updates to the Hurricane Irma forecast path the Miami-Dade area of Florida coastline is firmly in the center of the forecast cone, with Irma predicted to hit somewhere around Biscayne Bay to Miami Beach, the results of which are estimated as a $131 billion realistic disaster scenario (RDS) by Lloyd’s.

Updated – 21:00 UTC September 8th: Major category 5 Hurricane Irma, which became the second strongest storm in history in the Atlantic, has battered the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean leaving a trail of destruction, as it continues on its route towards Florida still packing 155 mph winds.

The fixed and multi-year pricing of its catastrophe bonds acts as an effective hedge against future reinsurance rate rises, according to Heritage Insurance CEO Bruce Lucas, something that is especially pertinent as major hurricane Irma tracks towards the United States.

Reflecting just how well capitalised the reinsurance industry is, analysts at Morgan Stanley said today that they believe that even the aggregate industry losses from hurricane Irma and hurricane Harvey combined could still only be an earnings event for the sector, rather than a capital event.

The market for live cat (live catastrophe) trading on the back of the approaching major hurricane Irma has not yet sprung into life, with plenty of potential buyers looking for last-minute protection but only a few trades and a market that is trying to find the right pricing levels to get deals executed.

It’s very early days to speculate on landfall for major hurricane Irma, which became a Category 5 monster storm this afternoon with winds of 180 mph, but should the forecast track prove correct and Irma make landfall in Florida it is expected that it would hit reinsurance interests hard, according to KBW.