rating

Ratings agency A.M. Best have published four updated draft criteria reports which relate to the insurance-linked securities market. They have updated and published draft criteria reports for their rating methodology for natural catastrophe bonds and sidecars. A.M. Best are requesting comments from market participants or other interested parties, so now is the time to have […]

Property Claims Services (PCS), the agency who provide estimates of insured industry losses for catastrophe events in the U.S., have increased their estimate for hurricane Irene from $3.65 billion to $4.3 billion. This still puts insured losses from hurricane Irene right in the range of the original estimates made after the event.

Regular catastrophe bond sponsor Munich Re are once again seeking to issue another transaction in their Queen Street series of deals. Queen Street IV Capital Ltd. is  being marketed to investors as a single tranche catastrophe bond seeking to issue notes which would provide Munich Re with $75m of cover over nearly 3.5 years (more […]

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has published a report discussing the impact of hurricane Irene to re/insurers. They conclude that Irene will have a limited impact to re/insurers but as part of the overall losses suffered this year Irene is likely to play a part in the continuing upward pressure on rates. Whether that pressure […]

As promised on Monday when they suspended its rating, Standard & Poor’s have reinstated the rating on the Queen Street III Capital Ltd. catastrophe bond which provides Munich Re with protection amounting to $150m of their European windstorm risks.

Standard & Poor’s have published an announcement stating that they have suspended the rating on the recent Queen Street III Capital Ltd. catastrophe bond which provides Munich Re with protection amounting to $150m of their European windstorm risks. The reason for the suspension is the same as the reason that another recent cat bond, Pylon […]

Fitch Ratings have published an updated version of their rating criteria for insurance-linked securities transactions including catastrophe bonds. The new rating criteria replaces three existing Fitch reports which covered the sector, the ‘Insurance-Linked Securities Rating Criteria (Global)’ issued on Feb. 4, 2008; ‘Catastrophe Bonds Rating Criteria’ issued on March 11, 2008; and ‘Life Insurance Reserve […]

USAA have successfully issued their 16th natural catastrophe bond recently through their latest Cayman Islands domiciled special purpose vehicle Residential Reinsurance 2011 Ltd. The four year deal was marketed at around $200m in size but USAA have managed to secure $250m of cover through this their latest cat bond demonstrating that despite a quiet market […]

Top Layer Re, the joint venture sidecar which was set up by Rennaissance Re and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company in 1999 to provide a vehicle to take only the very high layers of worldwide catastrophe reinsurance and retro programs, has had its ratings affirmed by A.M. Best. This despite the sidecar vehicle taking […]

Standard & Poor’s has announced that it has reconsidered the preliminary rating that it assigned to the Class 5 tranche of catastrophe bond Residential Reinsurance 2011 Ltd. when it was first marketed earlier this month (previous article here). Originally S&P had assigned the Class 5 notes a rating of ‘B’ but today they have raised […]