economy

Insurance-linked securities, particularly catastrophe bonds, have had a rough time of late thanks to the economic crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Any positive outlook is a welcome thing in times like these. The Geneva Association are the latest organisation to paint a positive outlook for these capital market instruments in their latest issue […]

The World Economic Forum has released a report detailing the challenging risks facing the global economy this year. The report, published in cooperation with Citibank, MMC, Swiss Re, Zurich Financial Services and the Wharton School Risk Center, identifies what areas of risk are going to require focus in 2009. As ever, environmental and climate risks […]

Despite 2008 being a year of economic upheaval with the credit crunch biting and fluctuations in prices of almost every asset or commodity you can think of, catastrophe bonds have really not fared too badly. If you look at stock markets and commodities, most are down on the start of the year. Let’s take a […]

Earlier this year, billionaire Warren Buffett made a bet with Florida State. He bet that Florida would escape major damage from hurricanes this year and that the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund would end the season unscathed. The bet involved Florida paying Buffett $224m for his commitment to buy $4b worth of bonds to finance recovery […]

Munich Re has released it’s autopsy of the natural disasters to have caused catastrophe losses during 2008. They say total losses were $200B with insured losses hitting $45B. That insured loss figure is around 50% higher than in 2007. Swiss Re recently released the same but with slightly higher figures, showing the disparity between measurement […]

Bloomberg is carrying another article discussing the current lack of interest in catastrophe bonds from an investment point of view. The current economic climate combined with the collapse of Lehman Brothers has caused a massive drop in investor confidence and reluctance among issuers to launch new deals. A side effect of that and much discussed […]

Not many people are happy to divulge their predictions for the Atlantic Tropical Storm season so far ahead, and it’s rare to get a glimpse into the prospects for hurricanes this far in advance. Tropical Storm Risk, Aon Benfield Re’s tropical storm research division have released their 2009 storm season prediction already. The TSR forecast […]

The reinsurance market is just coming to terms with the current economic climate and the recent large catastrophe losses according to a report from Standard & Poor’s. Reinsurers have been through a period where they have been able to build up capital but that came to an abrupt end this year and with final catastrophe […]

There’s a Reuters story (available here via Insurance Journal) in the press discussing the current slowness in the catastrophe bond market despite the fact that they remain in favour with investors. The story highlights the fact that there are at least $2b worth of bonds in the pipeline some (or all) of which may get […]

At times like these any source of background data and information is welcome to help understanding of the impact of the credit crisis on your markets. With stock markets declining, oil prices falling by the day, businesses folding and consumer confidence waning how will this impact the reinsurance and insurance markets? Well the Geneva Association […]