Hurricane Ian 2022

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds as a group have delivered a strong start to 2023, with an average ILS fund return of 1.18% for January, the second strongest performance for the month in the record of the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index.

The current post-Katrina-like hard market is an “exciting time” for insurance-linked securities (ILS) managers who see profits in the future amid high demand for capacity, suggests Emmanuel Modu, managing director of ILS at AM Best.

Catastrophe bond investment funds structured in the UCITS format have reported a record start to the year, with the average return across the leading UCITS cat bond funds reaching 1.77% so far in 2023.

United Insurance Holdings Corporation has significantly increased its hurricane Ian gross loss estimate, adding over $500 million to the total, with much of that to be covered by reinsurance, but also causing the company to announce that United Property & Casualty Insurance Company is now expected to become insolvent.

According to the final year-end data for the Eurekahedge ILS Advisers Index, an equally weighted index that tracks the performance of 26 constituent insurance-linked investment funds, on average, pure catastrophe bond funds performed the best in 2022, while the gap between the top and bottom performing ILS funds was particularly significant.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond funds only fell by -2.16% on average for the full-year 2022, despite the significant losses the industry suffered from major hurricane Ian, an Index of ILS fund performance shows.

The maturity date has been extended for one of the classes of notes issued under the Herbie Re Ltd. catastrophe bond program, which is sponsored by Specialty insurance and reinsurance company Fidelis.

According to new data published by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), insured claims paid by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) after major hurricane Ian have now risen to above $2.2 billion.

The insurance-linked securities (ILS) market reacted very conservatively to hurricane Ian, with catastrophe bonds marked down heavily and that may have been caused by the fear over whether losses result from storm surge or flood, a common concern in the market, consultancy Lane Financial has explained.

Catastrophe bond funds in a UCITS format only fell to a -2.3% negative annual return for 2022, according to the average weighted index of the Plenum CAT Bond UCITS Fund Indices.