Catastrophe bond news

The secondary market for trading in catastrophe bonds and ILS proved to be a “valuable source of liquidity” in 2014, as investors sought to free up capital to invest in the year’s record new issuance, according to Aon Benfield Securities.

Once again the last seven days has seen a number of short-dated, soon to mature catastrophe bonds, which offer higher yields than recent primary issuance, traded in the secondary market, as investors continue to be attracted to these opportunities.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 25th January 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.

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.