economy

The United Nations World Food Programme has teamed up with the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide almost $1m in funding to support research and planning for weather index-based insurance schemes aimed at poor rural farmers. This is great and furthers the cause of index-based mechanisms for […]

It’s become apparent that reinsurers are going to have to wait until December to get a final loss estimate from the ISO’s Property Claims Services unit. This won’t please those waiting to here whether any instruments such as catastrophe futures, options or bonds have been triggered. The magnitude of losses is becoming clear in reports […]

Swiss Re have come out as the company behind the Malawi-World Bank weather derivatives deal which I wrote about last week. In a press release on the Swiss Re website they say: Swiss Re announced that it has entered into a weather derivative contract with the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World […]

In these times of economic turmoil when billions can be lost in a matter of hours on fluctuating and unstable markets, catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities are still performing admirably. The Wall Street Journal has an article on just this topic today which is also great for widening the appeal as it helps reach out […]

Concerning news from Business Insurance that the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund could face it’s own catastrophe in the future if it’s capitalisation isn’t shored up. The current financial and economic climate has caused it’s investors to be bailed out by governments around the world and most likely means the fund will also require a bail […]

Standard & Poor’s have now downgraded all four of the catastrophe bonds which used Lehman Brothers Special Financing as the total return swap counterparty. The issuers of the bonds have terminated their swaps and are exploring their options and the lack of a counterparty is the reason for the following actions. ‘Ajax Re Ltd.’s class […]

Munich Re have issued a press release stating that demand for catastrophe bonds remains high even considering the unprecedented financial turmoil being experienced by the markets. The fact that cat bonds risk is not correlated to other securitised products is keeping them in favour with hedge funds and other asset managers who are seeking to […]

At a recent conference discussing pension funds and liabilities the advice was clear; in the current economic climate make efforts to de-risk by diversifying into alternative asset classes. The good news is that one of those assets mentioned was catastrophe bonds, which despite the recent catastrophe losses (which may or may not have triggered a […]

Standard & Poor’s have issued a report on the market for natural catastrophe bonds and how it has faired under the current economic gloom and credit crunch. The report ‘Nat Cat Insurance Bonds Buck The Credit Crunch Trend’ (available to Ratings Direct subscribers) concludes that catastrophe insurance linked securities and catastrophe bonds have proven generally […]

The effects of weather risk on a countries economy depends on a number of factors including how severe the weather is in that region, how developed the nation is, how much the nation depends on weather sensitive industries such as agriculture and how much they hedge or mitigate those risks. Weatherbill have released a really […]