Catastrophe bond news

The SureChoice and Elevate reciprocal exchanges are set to benefit from additional named storm reinsurance protection via a new catastrophe bond, as coastal property managing general underwriter SageSure is back in the market with an up to $200 million Gateway Re Ltd. (Series 2024-1) issuance.

The Board of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) met today and has confirmed a 1-in-100 year PML for 2024 funding purposes at a new high of $6.5 billion, meaning the insurer of last resort will seek to require just over $4 billion in reinsurance limit for the 2024 wind season.

The stage is being set for what could be the most significant year of growth the catastrophe bond asset class has ever experienced, as forecasts that new issuance could approach $20 billion suggest outright cat bond market growth of more than $8 billion is possible in 2024.

With $415 million in 144A cyber catastrophe bonds issued in the latter stages of 2023, broker Gallagher Re is expecting activity levels to continue, according to Gallagher Securities’ Head of Cyber ILS, Theo Norris.

Investors are expected to continue to demand a premium for providing capital to support indemnity catastrophe bonds focused on the state of Florida, as despite the reforms this market remains complex, Twelve Capital’s Head of Investment Solutions Vittorio Sangiorgio has said.

Insurance and reinsurance market loss activity in 2023 is seen as having been sufficient to help maintain discipline in the sector, global independent alternative and active investment management firm Man Group has said.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) is said to have stabilised its risk transfer and reinsurance program, while increasing its claims paying capacity to the 1-in-365-year return period, as of January 1st 2024, according to rating agency AM Best.

The catastrophe bond market saw a more stable pricing environment in the fourth-quarter of 2023, as the trend towards tighter pricing that had begun earlier in the year slowed down, Aon Securities has said.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending February 18th 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 subject of volatility in re/insurers results due to frequency loss events and the fact they require capital and risk transfer to help them manage this, came up during one of the panel sessions at our recent ILS NYC 2024 conference in New York on February 9th.