Reinsurance sidecars news

Global reinsurer Hannover Re increased its natural catastrophe retrocession protections at the January 1st, 2025, reinsurance renewals by EUR 100 million to a little more than EUR 1.2 billion, with growth in the aggregate excess of loss and whole account excess of loss covers more than offsetting a reduced K-Cessions sidecar for the year.

SCOR has reported more competitive market conditions at the January reinsurance renewals, with increased capital supply the main driver, leading it to stay disciplined in property catastrophe risks, where it noted premiums were flat, but its net exposure slightly higher after the contract signings.

According to Gallagher Re, reinsurers within the EMEA regions looked to obtain growth across Europe at the key 1/1 renewals, with many offering more capacity as they aimed to achieve their growth mandates which came almost exclusively from incumbent reinsurers, in part empowered with ILS-fueled new sidecar capacity. 

AXIS Capital, the Bermuda based specialty insurance and reinsurance company, reported a significant 39% increase in fee income generated from its work with third-party investors for full-year 2024.

Re/insurer MS Amlin has again returned to the capital markets for a fifth renewal of its collateralized catastrophe quota share reinsurance sidecar vehicle Phoenix Re and it takes the sidecar platform to its largest yet at $90 million for 2025.

The insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance investments portfolio of Dutch pension PFZW, which is managed by pension investment firm PGGM, delivered a 15.1% return for full-year 2024, while in asset terms the allocation was a little down year-on-year but flat through the fourth-quarter.

According to senior executives at Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), the fee income flowing to the company from its third-party capitalised Ruby Re life reinsurance sidecar is already meaningful and while a new transaction was ceded to the sidecar in Q3 last year, the structure still had around two-thirds of its capital and capacity left […]

According to sources, retrocessional reinsurance arrangements are not expected to play a particularly significant role in supporting reinsurers losses from the Los Angeles, California wildfires, aside from support being received through quota share arrangements and collateralized sidecar structures.

With the catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market expected to continue growing by analysts at investment bank Jefferies, they say that this will necessitate a continued expansion further into new and secondary perils, to offer broader risk management for re/insurers and an increasingly diversified investment choice for allocators.

Amundi US Investment Management has reported that its Pioneer CAT Bond Fund strategy delivered a 14.27% return in the year to October 31st 2024, while assets under management in the strategy have continued to expand through the end of the year.