Catastrophe bond news

Florida takeout insurer Heritage Property and Casualty Insurance Co. could see its Citrus Re Ltd. (Series 2015-1) catastrophe bond hit as much as $327.5m in size thanks to demand from investors, while pricing has moved to the mid and lower ends of guidance.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 29th March 2015, 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.

This year has seen a dearth of reported tornado events across the United States. Currently the run-rate for tornado reports is significantly below average and in fact less than half the 25th percentile and not far off the minimum ever seen by this time in March.

The fact insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond issuance follows the traditional reinsurance renewal cycle might hinder the development of the market, as some investors would prefer a steady stream of issuance throughout the year.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the authority that looks after Boston’s mass transit systems, may look to the catastrophe bond market as a potential solution to hedge the risks of another winter like the one it has just experienced.

Global total economic and insured losses from severe convective storms is on the rise as the event’s sub-perils, which includes hail storms, flooding, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, caused increasing losses in 2014, according to reinsurer Swiss Re.

Global reinsurance firm Munich Re looks set to be successful with its latest catastrophe bond issue, as the still $100m Queen Street X Re Limited (2015) cat bond has been priced at the mid-point of initial guidance.

The World Bank has significantly expanded the range of disaster risk transfer, management and financing options it offers to clients, adding coverage for risks outside of pure natural catastrophe events and also insurance or reinsurance options.

The Florida Cabinet and Governor Scott have just approved the CEO of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) to go to the private reinsurance and capital markets to establish options and pricing for up to $2.2 billion of risk transfer.

New York based Stone Ridge Asset Management, a provider of mutual fund investments across a variety of alternative risk assets including reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS), is launching a new fund which will allow reinsurance as one of the underlying asset classes.