Insurance linked securities news, ILS news

The outstanding market for catastrophe bonds and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) has experienced impressive growth in 2018 so far, growing by 14% across the first half of the year, to a new record size of $35.3 billion.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) and collateralized reinsurance funds managed a positive average return of 0.19% for the month of May 2018, but the impacts of last year’s hurricanes and other catastrophe losses continued to hurt some fund strategies with a number falling negative for the month.

Bermuda-based specialty insurance and reinsurance company AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. is now set to secure an upsized $200 million of coverage from its new Northshore Re II Ltd. (Series 2018-1) catastrophe bond, while at the same time the pricing has now been fixed below the bottom end of the initial range.

The new Acorn Re Ltd. (Series 2018-1) catastrophe bond transaction, that seeks parametric earthquake cover to benefit the Kaiser Permanente health group and other reinsureds of Hannover Re, looks set to upsize by one-third to $400 million, while pricing guidance fell to the bottom of the launch range.

Stone Ridge Asset Management’s mutual ILS funds experienced slower growth in terms of insurance-linked security (ILS) and reinsurance linked assets under management in the last quarter of record, but the manager has hit a new milestone as its ILS assets reached $7 billion.

The insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and non-traditional or alternative sources of capital gained more ground at the mid-year June 1st and July 1st 2018 reinsurance renewals, as equivalence of coverage increased while ILS capacity began to expand its remit once again.

Reinsurance firms are reacting to the realisation that there is a “new normal” in property catastrophe reinsurance pricing, according to Willis Re, as they faced the reality at the mid-year renewals that rate momentum is disappearing and some accounts came out as much as -7.5% down.

Our latest quarterly report on the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market is now available to download. The report, ‘Q2 2018 – Sponsors and investors show commitment to ILS’, analyses a bumper second-quarter featuring $5.15 billion of issuance, which drove the outstanding market to a new high at $35.3 billion.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 1st July 2018, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

Bermuda-based specialty insurance and reinsurance firm AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. has lifted the target size for its new Northshore Re II Ltd. (Series 2018-1) catastrophe bond to as much as $200 million, while at the same time the coupon offered to investors has fallen and will settle at the bottom of initial guidance or below […]