ILS funds news, insurance linked securities or ILS fund news

The broad diversity within the insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund market became very apparent in October 2019, as the impacts of catastrophe losses from Hagibis drove the gap between best and worst performing ILS fund to almost 10%.

Markel CATCo Investment Management has added a new director to its stock exchange listed and in run-off retrocessional reinsurance focused investment strategy, the CATCo Reinsurance Opportunities Fund Ltd.

There are fears in the market that typhoon Hagibis is going to end up repeating what was seen with last year’s typhoon Jebi, with loss creep emerging after the April reinsurance renewal again, potentially to the detriment of those hoping for significant rate increases.

Global reinsurance company Swiss Re has significantly increased its use of alternative or third-party investor capital within its collateralised retrocessional reinsurance sidecar vehicle Sector Re Ltd., taking the vehicles total assets to close to $1.1 billion this year.

It’s becoming clear that typhoon Hagibis’ impacts in Japan have hammered the performance of some private insurance-linked securities (ILS) positions in October and this could be sufficient to overshadow what has been another positive month for the catastrophe bond market.

The Plenum CAT Bond Fund, the flagship offering from Zurich based specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) and catastrophe bond investment manager Plenum Investments, has received a higher grading as a sustainable investment opportunity in its second assessment.

A loss reserve has been established for one of Zurich headquartered ILS and reinsurance fund manager Twelve Capital’s private Dodeka catastrophe bonds, after the transaction became exposed to potential losses from recent global catastrophe events.

The biggest issues facing the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market today, all surround the terms and contractual language related to collateral lock-up and commutations, while loss buffer tables have been seen to cause particular problems as they are often too simplistic, speakers said at an event yesterday.

A recent survey of 200 Chief Investment Officers (CIO’s) and investment team members from the life, property and casualty, insurance and reinsurance sector found that 18% of respondents are already holding some insurance-linked securities (ILS) within their investment portfolios.

Nephila Capital is taking a “disciplined approach to long-term value creation” according to Markel Co-CEO Richie Whitt, who said that the flagship insurance-linked securities (ILS) unit of the carrier remains on target for the year.