Insurance linked securities news, ILS news

Hurricane Helene is in the Gulf of Mexico and having wrapped convection around itself looks set for rapid intensification over the day as it speeds towards what is still expected to be a Big Bend, Florida landfall. Intensity forecasts are now somewhat higher, as too are the forecasts for a deadly storm surge and for […]

If hurricane Helene does not deviate from the currently forecasted path for the storm it is not expected to have significant implications for the catastrophe bond market, according to Swiss specialist asset manager Plenum Investments.

Although Christian Bruns, Partner and Portfolio Manager at LGT ILS Partners Ltd., noted that transacting cyber risk in an excess-of-loss format may not currently be in the best interest of the firm’s investors, he highlighted the potential to transact the risk in a quota-share format through its in-house rated reinsurance carrier, Lumen Re.

Essent Guaranty, a wholly owned subsidiary of Essent Group, has successfully closed Radnor Re 2024-1 Ltd., the firm’s tenth issuance of mortgage insurance-linked notes, which upsized and eventually completed at $363.4 million.

Wealth managers at US Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, have highlighted reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) as diversifying drivers of income for their clients.

After posting record levels of issuance so far in 2024, the catastrophe bond market appears poised to offer an attractive entry point for investors, according to Jack Burdick, an Associate at investment manager Neuberger Berman.

Ledger Investing, the insurtech and casualty insurance-linked securities (ILS) company, has funded and launched a new $100 million casualty sidecar for a global reinsurer, financing the company’s casualty reinsurance business over three underwriting years on a quota share basis.

China is aiming to strengthen its insurance system, with a particular focus on the impacts of weather and natural disasters and its State Council, a key ruling body, has cited catastrophe bonds again, as one measure that can assist.

While the focus for many is on what is still potential tropical cyclone nine and soon to become storm Helene on the Atlantic side, off the Pacific coast of Mexico hurricane John rapidly intensified and made landfall as a Category 3 storm which has resulted in enquiries from catastrophe bond investors.

Interest in private ILS opportunities, so collateralised reinsurance and retrocession arrangements, has been rising and continues to, Marcel Grandi of Twelve Capital believes. He also thinks these instruments afford an investment manager more scope, in terms of investment options beyond catastrophe bonds and tailoring portfolios.