insurance

New Paradigm Underwriters, LLC, the Florida-headquartered specialist managing general agency focused on parametric insurance, reinsurance and risk transfer products, has announced the hiring of former Greenlight Re Deputy Chief Underwriting Officer Matthew Grunewald.

The ongoing Australian bushfire disaster could now become the most costly on record, after estimated insurance claims rose by another 43% to reach A$1.34 billion (around US $925m) and a further sharp increase in the loss is now expected.

Swiss Re Capital Markets, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) focused unit of the global reinsurance firm, has successfully helped to bring the first parametric catastrophe bond covering some of the earthquake risks in a portfolio of mortgage investments to market.

There has been another sharp increase in insurance industry losses from the Australian bushfire season, as the total has now reached A$995 million and will rise further in the coming days.

Specialist insurance, reinsurance and ILS capital manager Hiscox has provided the capital to back a novel parametric cyber risk transfer arrangement that is based on a trigger from PCS and was transacted on the technology platform created by AkinovA.

Australian primary insurance giant Suncorp is the latest to provide an update on its losses from the ongoing bushfire disaster in the country, saying that it currently counts losses of up to $345 million but notes that it has drop-down and aggregate reinsurance that could come into play.

Investors are circling shares in retrocessional reinsurance investment manager Markel CATCo’s listed insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund, partly due to share price increases experienced in recent weeks, but also over the potential for subrogation to benefit any holdings they have.

Global reinsurance giant Munich Re’s NatCat service has released estimates for the industry insured losses from Japanese typhoons Hagibis and Faxai, pegging them at $10 billion and $7 billion respectively.

Rates for catastrophe exposed homeowners and commercial property insurance rose through the fourth-quarter of 2019, with further rate increases also expected as insurers pull-back from areas particularly affected by disaster losses in recent years.

Neon Underwriting, the specialty insurance and reinsurance operation that is part of American Financial Group, Inc., is to go into run-off, as its parent decided that it isn’t generating a sufficient return on its investment through its participation at Lloyd’s.