risk transfer

Goldman Sachs has been involved in an interesting structured finance transaction recently. Through its special purpose vehicle, the Cayman Islands based, Signum Finance Cayman Ltd. Goldman Sachs has issue $200m of Series 2010-09 notes designed to provide it with a mortality hedge for a defined block of life insurance.

The growth of renewable energies and their increasing usage in power generation is going to create opportunities for the insurance and reinsurance industry. Munich Re said in a press release the other day that they expect ‘renewable energies to generate strong growth in premium volume’.

This summers extreme heatwave in Russia which resulted in widespread fires and a serious drought across much of the country has caused considerable losses for individuals and the public/private sectors. Drought destroyed 17% of the available crop area in Russia and the fires spread over 200,000 hectares causing widespread damage and loss of homes and […]

Standard & Poor’s have issued a report (available to Ratings Direct subscribers here) which discusses the role that the bond markets and capital markets in general have to play in financing countries response to and mitigation efforts for climate change. The report identifies that there are issues to overcome before institutional investors will allow their […]

New Zealand’s Earthquake Commission, a state owned disaster insurer which will pay the first layer of claims from the recent Christchurch earthquake, has received permission to sell stocks and bonds it holds to raise cash to cover claims. The government has agreed that it needs to sell the assets so that it holds enough cash […]

Four initiatives which involve over 100 insurers from around the globe have issued a call to governments worldwide to utilise risk management, risk transfer and insurance techniques and expertise to help the developing world cope with the changing climate.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) is doing a great job of providing insurance coverage for natural disasters to Caribbean nations. Well received by most, it’s now being seen as a potential model for a similar scheme to protect Pacific islanders against disasters which could destroy their property and businesses.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that it wants banks and non-banking financial companies to use securitisation only for risk transfer purposes and not ever for profit booking.

Guy Carpenter have issued their second quarter of 2010 catastrophe bond market report. They cite the eight cat bond transactions and $2.05b of risk capital issued as the second most active quarter on record. Seven of these transactions involved U.S. hurricane risks and $1.7b of the risk capital issued was for U.S. wind which to […]

A report released by consulting firm Hymans Robertson suggests that pension fund longevity risk transfer is growing fast and within the next two years will become a norm for large companies looking to derisk their pension fund strategy. To date, £6.3b of pension risk transfer deals have been struck in 2010 and given the current […]