Catastrophe bond news

According to newspaper reports the Indian government has been considering a catastrophe bond type structure, possibly combined with a sovereign guarantee, in order to overcome a fear foreign suppliers have over its nuclear liability laws.

The topic of providing risk transfer and financing to cover pandemic risks using catastrophe bonds has reached the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, according to the FT, as the world comes to terms with the threat that could be posed by outbreaks causing high mortality levels.

French reinsurance firm SCOR is back in the ILS market with a proposed $150m U.S. wind, U.S. and Canada earthquake catastrophe bond Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2015-1), as it seeks to expand its capital markets sourced retrocession coverage.

Catlin Group has returned to the catastrophe bond market to seek at least $200m of reinsurance cover with the issue of Galileo Re Ltd. (Series 2015-1). Interesting the deal covers a significantly higher level of risk than the firms last cat bond.

A factor that helped to drive record catastrophe bond issuance in 2014 was the structural changes which influenced a more sponsor friendly environment, according to the world’s largest reinsurance firm, Munich Re.

Health insurer Aetna’s Vitality Re VI Ltd. (Series 2015-1) ILS has achieved the target size of $200m of protection for the sponsor, while the notes have been priced with one tranche near the lowest end of guidance and the other below it.

The eighth in this series of articles involving leading figures from insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance on the markets prospects for 2015 features Gary Martucci and Maren Josefs from Standard & Poor’s.

ISO, a division of Verisk Analytics, has launched a new initiative that will see it targeting the reinsurance and ILS space as it seeks to develop data and analytics tools which make operating, capital and capacity management more efficient.

An active month of trading activity in the secondary market for insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bonds was observed again in December, as ILS investors continued to free up capital for new cat bonds and reinsurance renewals.

A new, comprehensive, high-resolution storm surge model for the U.S. has been released by catastrophe risk modelling and analysis firm Karen Clark & Company (KCC), which it believes will help ILS investors to get more comfortable with this risk.