risk transfer

Guy Carpenter have published their report looking back at Q1 catastrophe bond issuance, reviewing the market and looking ahead to the rest of the year. The report takes an interesting look at some of the trends emerging after the busiest Q1 of cat bond issuance ever. Of course no Q1 report would be complete without […]

Guy Carpenter have published their third in a series of publications looking at Solvency II and how re/insurers operating in Europe can prepare for the new regulatory regime, what issues may arise and any risks for cedents. The first report from the series can be found here, the second here.

A new report recently published by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with a range of private sector companies including re/insurers, outlines recommendations to reduce the impact of natural disasters through improving both physical and financial preparedness. The report also advocates utilising the resources of both the public and private sectors to effectively manage natural […]

In recent weeks we’ve written about a number of countries who have been discussing the possibility of issuing catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities as ways to protect themselves against the costs of a major natural disaster. We’ve seen the issue come up for discussion in governments in Taiwan, Israel, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, the ASEAN […]

Moody’s have affirmed the ratings of two insurance-linked security deals issued by Unum Group. The Northwind and Tailwind life insurance linked securities had their ratings affirmed as the deal performance and performance of underlying assets were both in line with Moody’s expectations despite recent economic conditions.

Strong investor demand and attractive market conditions resulted in a record first quarter of 2011 for catastrophe bond issuance said Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA) in their recently published Q1 cat bond market report. $1 billion of catastrophe bonds were issued during Q1 2011 compared to $650m in the same quarter last year.

Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to press ahead with plans for a disaster insurance fund after a meeting of their finance ministers last Friday in Bali. The ministers agreed that a regional disaster and catastrophe insurance facility is essential to deal with events such as earthquakes, typhoons and tsunamis […]

The recent earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan have stimulated discussion of the financial exposure to earthquakes in other countries around the world. Canada, not a country you generally associate as at major risk of quake damage, is beginning to see calls for their quake exposure to be measured accurately so that risk management and […]

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) have announced a change of their placing reinsurance broker for this year. Guy Carpenter will be taking over as the new reinsurance broker for the facility and replaces Aon Benfield who provided the service to the facility last year.

Reinsurer Munich Re has announced that the catastrophe events in Australia and New Zealand which occurred in the first two months of 2011 have already caused a claims burden of around $1.5 billion. The New Zealand earthquake is estimated to have cost them around $1 billion and the flooding in Australia and Cyclone Yassi approximately […]