Catastrophe bond news

U.S. primary insurer State Farm has been back in the catastrophe bond market in recent weeks, with a privately syndicated Merna Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) cat bond transaction that successfully secured the firm a $300 million source of fully-collateralized U.S. earthquake reinsurance protection.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 1st April 2018, 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.

Finance ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) group of countries are set to discuss disaster resilience and risk transfer at meetings scheduled for next week in Singapore, with the group looking to find ways to bring disaster risk financing up to speed.

Global asset management group Schroders observed a mixed outcome at the January 1st, 2018 renewals, with insurance-linked securities (ILS) business experiencing lower-than-anticipated rate increases across all lines, according to Dirk Lohmann, CEO of Secquaero Advisors AG and Daniel Ineichen, Head of ILS Portfolio Management at Schroders.

The United Kingdom government has been courting China and trying to encourage the country to look towards the UK and its recently enacted insurance-linked securities (ILS) regulatory and tax framework as a vehicle to help China and its entities gain access to greater disaster insurance or reinsurance protection.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) remain an attractive and diversifying asset class, and with returns now expected to be higher following 2017 catastrophe events and the subsequent impact on reinsurance industry pricing, Mercer’s Robert Howie suggests investors should look to the space in 2018.

Demand in the expanding and increasingly influential insurance-linked securities (ILS) market remains strong, and as the space grows, capital markets-backed capacity will cover more of the re/insurance industry’s losses from major events, according to Greg Reisner, a Director at international ratings agency, A.M. Best.

The acquisition of XL Group was not the expensive option for insurance giant AXA, according to the firms CEO Thomas Buberl, who said that the company had a number of potential acquisition targets on the table which had more expensive valuations.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS), catastrophe bonds and collateralized reinsurance funds saw divergent performance during the month of February, as a number saw their performance hit as they were required to make adjustments to prior month loss estimates during the period.

United Insurance Holdings (UPC Insurance), the Florida headquartered expansive primary insurance group, is returning to the capital markets in search of reinsurance protection with a currently $100 million sized Armor Re II Ltd. (Series 2018-1) catastrophe bond issuance.