diversification

The insurance-linked securities market saw steady issuance during 2011 and still managed to achieve near $5 billion of new issuance despite the disruptions to the market caused by new risk models and large catastrophe events, says Towers Watson in their January report on the P&C re/insurance market (available here). Sponsors of ILS and catastrophe bond […]

Reinsurer Swiss Re published some interesting data insights into the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked security market in their recent ILS market update, which we covered in more detail here. One of the interesting graphs in the report shows the mix of perils that were issued in ILS or cat bond transactions during 2011.

Catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities seem to be in the news at least once a week with respect to their use as a diversifier for investment portfolios. A fortnight ago we wrote about the Australian investment advisor Ibbotson who suggested that insurance-linked securities were an ‘investment asset to withstand recession‘. Now Australian investment research house […]

French reinsurer SCOR has officially announced the launch of their Atropos insurance-linked securities fund today. We’ve written about Atropos previously, you can find our earlier articles about this new ILS fund here, the fund actually launched on the 31st August and has since been marketed to investors but SCOR have today published a press release regarding […]

Diversification is becoming a regular theme of many of our articles as investors seek our ways to keep a good mix of perils in their insurance-linked securities portfolios. The catastrophe bond market recently found itself to consist of 71% U.S. hurricane risks, add to that the slow primary issuance and you have a difficult situation […]

The risk of an above average U.S. hurricane season and the abundance of investor capital waiting to be put to work are two competing forces which are currently acting on secondary market prices of catastrophe bonds according to investment manager Clariden Leu in their latest monthly managers report.

Despite the heavy loss activity of the first half of 2011 and the particularly low issuance levels during Q2, investors are still keen to invest in catastrophe bonds say Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA) in their latest Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) Market Update which was published yesterday.

As the primary catastrophe bond market slowed in June, with only a single cat bond transaction being issued  by Loma Re Ltd., the secondary market continued to be calm and saw insurance-linked securities investors holding onto their positions in response to the lack of new investment opportunities.

Reinsurance broker Willis Re have also published a report looking at the state of the market at the 1st July renewals. In the Willis Re 1st View Renewals Report they suggest that reinsurers are repositioning themselves for a possible market turn after the heavy losses suffered in the past 16 months.

It’s been apparent for some months that the catastrophe bond market stalled during the second quarter as a result of the impact of the Japanese earthquake and the uncertainty caused by changes to U.S. hurricane risk models. At the start of this year the market was feeling positive about the prospects for growth as the […]