reinsurance

The insurance industry’s losses due to wildfires are rising, with an escalation in wildfire risk beyond the traditional fire seasons and regions, according to Firas Saleh, director of wildfire models, North America at Moody’s.

Ocean Harbor Insurance Group has entered the catastrophe bond market as a first-time sponsor and is seeking $75 million in collateralized multi-year catastrophe reinsurance protection from a debut Oceanside Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) issuance, Artemis has learned.

Global reinsurance company SCOR has now secured the 20% upsized target for $240 million in fully-collateralized retrocession from its new Atlas Capital DAC (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond, with the notes now priced 6.5% below the mid-point of initial spread guidance, Artemis has learned.

AmRisc, LLC, a coastal commercial property insurance specialist subsidiary of CRC Group, has renewed its E&S property focused collateralized reinsurance sidecar named Trouvaille Re Ltd. at an upsized $580 million for the coming year, with alternative investment firm Stone Point again in support, as well as fronting specialist MS Transverse.

Artemis has learned from sources that the vast majority of principal from insurtech Kin’s $175 million Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) catastrophe bond is expected to be returned to investors at the upcoming risk period end, while just $5 million will be retained with an extended maturity date to cover any potential loss development.

While the mid-year reinsurance renewals are forecast to see further softening of between 5% and 10% as a base case, according to analysts at Evercore ISI, the team there asks whether subrogation potential for the January California wildfires could make the renewals even more competitive?

Reinsurance sidecars have continued to gain in popularity and brokers have commented today on the expansion of this third-party investor supported segment of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, seeing it as one area driving robust capital growth into 2025.

As Hong Kong continues to focus on developing insurance-linked securities (ILS) as a key market segment, a position paper from advisory body the Financial Services Development Council states that further integrating ILS products into its own investment portfolios would help the government encourage investors to consider allocating to the asset class.

Skyline Partners Ltd., a parametric insurance specialist, has announced a new project in collaboration with the European Space Agency’s Business Applications and Space Solutions programme to leverage space-based technology for the development of parametric insurance solutions for drought and wildfire risks on a global scale.

The opposing forces of seasonality and demand continued to drive the overall yield of the catastrophe bond market sideways through March, ending the month at 10.43% so remaining relatively flat over the period, according to the latest data from Plenum Investments.