Mortality catastrophe bond news

Standard & Poor’s (S&P), the global credit rating agency, has affirmed the ratings on seven tranches of insurance-linked securities (ILS) from transactions which transferred mortality, longevity and life insurance risks to the capital markets.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services provided the ratings on $5.16 billion of catastrophe bond issuance in 2013, including medical benefit payments linked and mortality bond transactions, up on the $4.8 billion rated in 2012.

The risk that insurers and reinsurers fear the most is the outbreak of a global pandemic, according to the results of a survey undertaken by professional services firm Towers Watson recently.

Reinsurer Swiss Re is to utilise an early redemption clause on two more tranches of mortality catastrophe bond notes issued through Vita Capital IV Ltd. This will take the number of tranches redeemed to four out of the six issued under this mortality cat bond program.

According to the results of a survey released today more life insurance companies are buying reinsurance protection, with Solvency II suspected a key driver of sales, but it has not yet resulted in increased issuance of life insurance-linked securities (ILS) or mortality catastrophe bonds.

French reinsurer SCOR recently completed its first non-life Atlas catastrophe bond issuance, the extreme mortality-linked Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2013-1). Aon Benfield Securities, the capital markets and investment banking division of the reinsurance broker, structured the deal and acted as a bookrunner.

French reinsurer SCOR has successfully completed its latest catastrophe bond issuance, a mortality linked deal issued through Irish limited company Atlas IX Capital Limited The transaction provides SCOR with a multi-year source of fully-collateralized retrocessional reinsurance for extreme mortality events such as pandemics.

French reinsurer SCOR has made some structural changes to its latest catastrophe bond issuance, the extreme mortality-linked Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2013-1), at the last-minute and has pulled one tranche of notes completely from the issuance while increasing the size of the other.

Capital markets and third-party investors have shown their approval of the first mortality-linked catastrophe bond of the year, Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2013-1) an extreme mortality insurance-linked security sponsored by French reinsurer SCOR, helping it to grow in size and pushing pricing expectations down.

Additional details are now available on the first mortality-linked catastrophe bond of the year. Last week we covered the launch of Atlas IX Capital Limited (Series 2013-1) an extreme mortality insurance-linked security sponsored by French reinsurer SCOR to provide it with retrocessional reinsurance protection.