reinsurance

K2 Advisors, the hedge fund focused investment management unit of Franklin Templeton, continues to overweight most insurance-linked securities (ILS), but in its outlook for 2025 notes that meaningful catastrophe bond issuance is required to absorb cash in the marketplace.

Insurance industry losses from the severe hailstorm that struck the Calgary area of Canada on August 5th 2024 is estimated to have reached CAD $3.25 billion, according to CatIQ, Canada’s insured loss and exposure indices provider.

Mereo Insurance, the Bermuda-based start-up with former AIG CEO Brian Duperreault as its Chairman, has now finalised a $700m+ capital raise for its equity balance-sheet we understand, gaining an ‘A-‘ rating from AM Best, while the company also deployed around $250m in capacity from its insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund at the January reinsurance renewals.

On Friday February 7th, around 415 attendees enjoyed a day of engaging, inspirational talks and valuable networking at our Artemis ILS NYC 2025 conference, hearing from our expert speakers that investor interest in catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities (ILS) is resurgent, while the ILS investment opportunity set is expanding.

In light of the recent Los Angeles wildfires, catastrophe bond fund manager Icosa Investments has called for the re/insurance industry to move beyond the categories of “peak” and “secondary” perils, warning of implications for cat bonds and investors amid rising losses from these types of events.

Catastrophe bond fund strategies in the UCITS format averaged positive returns for the month of January 2025, despite the effects of wildfire related mark-downs to exposed positions, according to the latest data from the Plenum CAT Bond UCITS Fund Indices.

The North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (NCIUA) has returned to the capital markets seeking $350 million of annual aggregate named storm reinsurance protection through this Cape Lookout Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond.

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending February 9th 2025, 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.

White Mountains has reported that for full year 2024, its investment into the Outrigger Re collateralized reinsurance sidecar, which supports its property and casualty insurance and reinsurance subsidiary Ark, delivered income of $46 million, down 33% on 2023 as catastrophe losses had a far greater impact.

Euler ILS Partners, the specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment manager, has issued an updated event report for the California wildfires, saying it believes the insurance industry loss may sit between $23 billion to $33 billion.