Cyber catastrophe bond news

During the Geneva Association’s media call on Global Risks & Insurance, Darren Pain, Director of Cyber, highlighted his expectation for continued growth in the cyber insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, though he noted this growth is likely to be gradual due to ongoing challenges.

Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions division has announced the hiring of Robert O’Connell as Global Cyber Strategy and Growth Leader, Executive Managing Director, a role that will see him tasked with leading on delivering value to cyber clients, including through the use of cyber insurance-linked securities (ILS).

The emergence of an insurance-linked securities (ILS) market for cyber risk is seen as a critical component for the future expansion of that line of business, with the capital markets expected to be a key reinsurance and retrocession provider, Moody’s has said.

The global IT outage caused by a defective software update from CrowdStrike has highlighted the “persistent uncertainty” in the cyber catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) asset class, rating agency AM Best said, also highlighting that there is uncertainty surrounding the tail and potential for loss development, which it seems is misunderstood.

With Beazley reporting nine-month results today, CEO Adrian Cox explained during an analyst call that the company saw an opportunity this summer to bulk-up its cyber protection through industry-loss warranty (ILW) arrangements and PoleStar Re catastrophe bonds.

While it has been growing its cyber underwriting business, specialist insurer Beazley has also implemented a robust hedging strategy to control the tail, recently securing a $290 million cyber industry loss warranty (ILW) cover and securing its third PoleStar Re cyber catastrophe bond.

Although Christian Bruns, Partner and Portfolio Manager at LGT ILS Partners Ltd., noted that transacting cyber risk in an excess-of-loss format may not currently be in the best interest of the firm’s investors, he highlighted the potential to transact the risk in a quota-share format through its in-house rated reinsurance carrier, Lumen Re.

The US cyber insurance industry loss index launched in 2023 by PERILS AG and CyberAcuView has now been expanded to also include reporting on unintentional, or accidental, cyber insurance industry loss events.

Analysis from broking group Aon and Parametrix, a specialist in parametric cloud downtime cyber risk transfer, shows that it is possible to gain diversification within cyber portfolios that have cloud outage risk concentrations, with geography one way to achieve that.

Beazley has now secured its latest cyber catastrophe bond and further upsized the transaction to provide even more in reinsurance, with the PoleStar Re Ltd. (Series 2024-3) issuance set to price at $210 million in size for the company, Artemis has learned.