Cumulative catastrophe bond issuance passes $100bn

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The catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) market has reached a new milestone, as strong demand from investors and sponsors has taken 2018 issuance to near $7 billion already, lifting total cumulative issuance since the market began passed the $100 billion mark, according to Artemis’ data on the market.

The impressive pace of growth in cat bonds and related ILS over the last two years has driven significant expansion of the market, as the use of securization and capital market investor backing for reinsurance and retrocession lifted cumulative issuance to this new three-digit billion high.

Hatteras Funds to launch ILS & reinsurance mutual interval fund

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Boutique alternative investment specialist Hatteras Funds is set to launch a new insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance linked investment mutual fund arranged as an interval structure, becoming the latest company to offer reinsurance-linked investments to advisors and clients.

The Hatteras Reinsurance Fund, a Delaware statutory trust, has been registered with the SEC under the Investment Company Act of 1940 as a non-diversified, closed-end investment company that will operate as an interval fund.

Tangency raises $50m, starts deploying quota share focused ILS strategy

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Tangency Capital Ltd., a recently launched insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment venture that has a focus on quota shares, has raised its first $50 million from a seed investor and begun to deploy the capital following its “differentiated” quota share focused investment strategy.

Tangency Capital was launched at the end of 2017 by three experienced ILS investment and reinsurance convergence focused executives, Dominik Hagedorn who was previously at Deutsche Bank, Kai Morgenstern, formerly of RenaissanceRe and Michael Jedraszak who was most recently the Chief Investment Officer for ILS at Hiscox.

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Steady increases in interest rates will benefit alternative investment strategies that have investments in short-term, highly rated fixed income portfolios, as it will raise their expected returns and could result in them growing their share of the overall hedge fund industry, according to the founder of Agecroft Partners.

That bodes well for insurance-linked securities (ILS) and reinsurance as an asset class, with the fully-collateralized nature of catastrophe bonds, ILS and reinsurance linked instruments meaning that they are invested in cash equivalents, such as highly rated fixed income, treasuries and bonds, or similar.

No stopping for ILS, cat bonds growth

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2017 was a record breaking year for cat bond issuance. Gary Harris and Brad Adderley from legal firm Appleby take a look back at what was a year to remember.

Catastrophe bond and insurance linked security (collectively, cat bond) issuances passed $1.9 billion during the fourth-quarter of 2017, according to the latest industry statistics.

Diversified cat bond portfolios beat other asset classes in Q1

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A market diversified portfolio of catastrophe bonds could have beaten the returns of many asset class benchmarks during the first-quarter of 2o18, despite increasing hurricane losses from prior year catastrophe events, as a low volatility, peril diversified approach to ILS investing demonstrated its robustness.

As investments in insurance or reinsurance risk go, a broad spread of the outstanding cat bond market could have provided a positive return in Q1 of 2018, as demonstrated by Aon Securities All Bond index, which tracks the performance of all outstanding catastrophe bonds in the market and includes both price and coupon return.

The only way to reduce risk is to understand it

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As climate change continues to exacerbate the impact of natural hazards, the importance of valuable and contextually appropriate risk information cannot be overstated. According to Swiss Re’s estimations, insured losses resulting from natural and man-made disasters was a record-breaking US$136 billion in 2017, mainly due to the three hurricanes that hit the US and the Caribbean, as well as the wildfires in California.

Although the costs and impacts of disasters continue to break records, events like this year’s 2018 Understanding Risk Forum are great opportunities for sharing what countries around the world are learning, which is that understanding risk equals better designed and more sustainable development.

UNDP, with nearly 170 country offices and as the largest implementer of disaster risk reduction programming in the UN System, is at the forefront of efforts to understand risk. And through my role, I have had the privilege to work with partners as they have made impressive steps in this regard.

GBM Award: Best Digital Experience for Customers – Central & Eastern Europe 2018

Global Brands Magazine team congratulates “Phoenix CRetro” team on winning the “Best Digital Experience for Customers – Central & Eastern Europe 2018” for the year 2018.

This year’s award winners were selected from a very competitive group of entrants, all of whom demonstrated unique and exceptional service delivery towards evolving financial sectors. Phoenix CRetro was awarded this honor for their exceptional commitment to Innovation, Quality, Performance and providing a Robust Financial environment in Europe.

Cat bonds a key disaster insurance option for Jamaica: Minister

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In a recent speech, the Minister of Finance and the Public Service for Jamaica, Dr. Nigel Clarke, explained that the country needs better disaster risk financing structures in place, with catastrophe bonds cited as one option that may be suitable.

Cat bonds have come up in government discussion in Jamaica a number of times, as the countries exposure to natural catastrophe risks, particularly hurricanes, is seen as so extreme that a major event could severely impact its economic development and finances.

Hence having robust natural disaster financing in place is seen as key and with a line of credit through a Precautionary Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF set to come to an end in 18 months time, the country is now looking to put in place disaster risk management plans to ensure ongoing financial liquidity when the worst occurs.

With 2017 stress test passed, ILS coming of age: S&P

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With the major losses of 2017 largely behind the sector, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market has tasked itself with becoming a trusted trading partner for ceding companies in their time of need, with the way the market recapitalised and traded forwards evidence that alternative capital continues to come of age, according to S&P.

In a recent report, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s highlights the resilience of alternative reinsurance capital, explaining that the ILS asset class successfully passed the stress test of 2017’s catastrophe losses.