Catastrophe bond news

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 11th 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.

According to Artemis’ sources, mortgage insurance firm Essent Guaranty is nearing completion of a first mortgage insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction, as it seeks capital markets support for its mortgage insurance portfolio, in a deal said to be likely to secure it $360.75 million of collateralized reinsurance capacity.

Another private catastrophe bond transaction has been issued using the Willis Towers Watson owned Resilience Re Ltd. platform, a $52.6 million Resilience Re Ltd. (Series 1811A) transaction, that sees collateralized reinsurance being sourced from capital market invetsors for an unknown sponsor.

Insurance and reinsurance brokerage Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has today announced the launch of the Global Ecosystem Resilience Facility, an insurance facility designed to help strengthen the resilience of ecosystems and their communities, through the use of efficient risk transfer where catastrophe bonds may feature.

U.S. primary insurance company Allstate is returning for its latest catastrophe bond transaction, a $400 million Sanders Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) U.S. multi-peril deal with certain innovative features that show the insurer continues to expand its protection from the cat bond market.

The insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond market, as well as wider alternative reinsurance capital structures, proved themselves resilient in 2017 positioning them for further growth, according to SIFMA’s Randy Snook.

French insurance giant AXA now has access to new capital solutions to help it to optimise its business, with the reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) operations and access to the capital markets that come with its acquisition of XL Group offering a new lever for efficiency, according to CEO Thomas Buberl.

The UK’s government-backed mutual terrorism reinsurance facility Pool Re is actively exploring the issuance of an insurance-linked securities (ILS), or at least some collateralized reinsurance, using the recently set up UK ILS regulatory regime, as the mutual looks to expand its sources of terror retrocession to the capital markets.

Alternative reinsurance capital and traditional reinsurers are set to become increasingly interdependent, as the two forms of capacity identify synergies and better ways to work together, while reinsurers get more adept at matching risks with the most appropriate form of capital, according to Moody’s.

A new private catastrophe bond has been issued through the Willis Towers Watson owned platform Resilience Re Ltd., in the form of a $60 million Resilience Re Ltd. (Series 1812A) zero coupon arrangement that will be providing an unknown sponsor with collateralized reinsurance protection.