Catastrophe bond news

ILS Bermuda Ltd. has announced that the date has been set for its 2015 event to promote Bermuda’s economic development as a centre of excellence for activities in the reinsurance convergence and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

U.S. primary insurance company Allstate has been actively exploring ways to use more third-party reinsurance capital within its business, but to date hasn’t found a compelling way to leverage alternative reinsurance capital or ILS as a tool to help the business grow.

Japanese primary insurance group Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co. Ltd. is back with another catastrophe bond, Kizuna Re II Ltd. (Series 2015-1), seeking a $205m (JPY25 billion) source of reinsurance protection from the capital markets for Japanese earthquake risks.

The SEF Entropics Cat Bond Fund, the first such catastrophe bond focused investment strategy to be launched in the Scandinavian region, is now available to retail investors with a new share class being made available through Swedish online bank Nordnet.

Research into the “unprecedented” and “very unusual” significant surge in sea levels that occurred on the East Coast of the U.S. during 2009 and 2010, claims to have found the cause of the storm surge-like phenomena.

The Isle of Man has joined the domicile race to attract insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond business, with the release of its Insurance Special Purpose Vehicles (ISPV) regulatory framework.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 8th 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.

Reinsurance broker Aon Benfield’s catastrophe modelling unit Impact Forecasting said that early estimates suggest aggregated economic losses from February’s winter storms in the U.S. will be in the low-digit billions of dollars, while insured losses are likely to exceed $1 billion.

Natural disasters now cost the globe between $250 billion and $300 billion each year, as asset values increase and urbanisation expands bringing disaster risk management to the forefront of a sustainable future, according to the United Nations’ (UN).

Homes at risk of wildfire in the U.S. amount to a staggering reconstruction value of beyond $237 billion, demonstrating the potential exposure levels and also the opportunity for the insurance, reinsurance and capital markets.