Catastrophe bond news

The latest catastrophe bond from U.S. primary insurer Safepoint Insurance Company has had its settlement date pushed back into the second-quarter, we’re told, but still the catastrophe bond market is set to reach a new first-quarter issuance record, with the total likely to be $3.84 billion or greater.

The Akibare Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) catastrophe bond transaction looks set to increase in size thanks to investor demand, with the targeted issuance size rising to $320 million of coverage for the two sponsoring ceding insurers from MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 18th March 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.

Bermudian insurance and reinsurance firm Arch Capital announced an interesting arrangement with the U.S. mortgage insurer Freddie Mac this week, which will position the re/insurer as an intermediary of sorts, channeling mortgage credit and insurance related risks back to a panel of reinsurance capital providers.

Insurance giant Generali Group said in its annual report that while it has historically preferred protection from traditional reinsurance sources, in some cases it has found that insurance-linked securities (ILS) has offered “more competitive terms,” suggesting the insurer may seek to increase its use of ILS going forwards.

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) has reached a new milestone in its use of the private risk transfer markets, as its reinsurance program surpassed $8 billion in size for the first time after the January renewals, with further growth to come as the insurer targets $10 billion of protection by 2022.

Essent Guaranty’s first mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction Radnor Re 2018-1 Ltd. has increased in size while being marketed to investors and now looks set to secure the company a $424.4 million capital markets backed source of collateralized reinsurance protection.

The latest catastrophe bond from Japanese primary insurance group Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co. Ltd. has seen its pricing drop while being marketed, as the $200 million Kizuna Re II Ltd. (Series 2018-1) Japan earthquake transaction looks set to complete with one tranche at the mid-point and another at the bottom of guidance.

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), the largely coastal residual market property insurer in the state, is to return to the catastrophe bond and reinsurance market to secure a new program for 2018, which could result in more capacity being purchased after some of its financial protection has been eroded by hurricane Harvey.

German reinsurance firm Hannover Re continued to grow its use of the capital markets as retrocessionaire and also source of fee income, by expanding its insurance-linked securities (ILS) activities during 2017, an area of the business it sees as growing while meeting cost-of-capital.