tornado

A huge tornado cut through the Oklahoma City suburbs yesterday mid-afternoon local-time, causing widespread devastation from a track estimated to be up to a mile wide at times. The tornado made a direct hit on the town of Moore, as a severe tornado with winds of up to 200mph and the storm has been given […]

The Missouri Department of Insurance have put new regulation in place which will require the states mutual insurers to take on more reinsurance cover to shore up their financial stability. The regulation has been prompted as a way to preemptively stop a similar run on the mutuals finances such as what happened after the deadly […]

Reinsurance broker Aon Benfield’s latest Global Catastrophe Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during March, highlights the growing losses that the reinsurance industry will face from the U.S. tornado season in 2012. The season has got off to an above average start again and the number of tornadoes to be […]

The above average start to the U.S. tornado season has continued to trend well above the long term historical averages. With insured losses from some recent outbreaks said to be as high as $2 billion and 269 recorded tornado touchdowns (as at 17th March) versus a 50th percentile average of 102 on that date, it’s […]

A couple of days ago we wrote about the higher than average incidence of tornadoes in the U.S. this year. Now the first estimate of insured losses for the recent outbreak of tornadoes in the U.S. midwest and southern states has come from risk modelling firm EQECAT. The recent spate of tornadoes saw almost a […]

Insurers and reinsurers are understandably nervous about the recent outbreak of tornadoes. Last year tornadoes caused in excess of $26 billion of economic losses and killed hundreds of people. Of course they also caused the default of the two Mariah Re catastrophe bonds. Now we seem to be beginning another extremely active tornado year, but […]

Weather forecaster Accuweather is predicting another above-average U.S. tornado season for 2012. Last year saw a near record number of tornadoes over the course of the season, with 2011 seeing 1,709 officially recorded tornadoes which was just short of the record of 1,817. The average for the last decade is only 1,300. 2011 also ranks […]

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s have downgraded the issue credit rating on the Series 2010-1 notes issued by Mariah Re Ltd. from ‘CC’ to ‘D’ today. This may well be the final update on this the first of the defaulted Mariah Re severe thunderstorm catastrophe bonds which became a total loss due to the record […]

The recent total loss of the two $100m tranches of Mariah Re Ltd. catastrophe bonds could make issuing severe thunderstorm only cat bonds more difficult, suggests A.M. Best managing senior financial analyst Asha Attoh-Okine in this article. Mariah Re was the first cat bond which was solely exposed to severe thunderstorms, which includes convective storms […]

As expected, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s have published a press release confirming the 100% loss of principal to the noteholders of the Mariah Re Ltd. Series 2010-1 U.S. tornado catastrophe bond. We broke the news early this morning that the Mariah Re 2010-1 cat bond notes were likely a total loss after the payout […]