Category: Analysis

Many insurers had a tough year in 2017 and the Lloyd's market was no exception. Not only was the overall performance weak, but the spread of performance between the independently managed syndicates was even wider than usual. Source:...

Brokers reported flat pricing at the Japanese renewals on April 1 while the latest pricing in the catastrophe bond and ILW markets shows the impact of continued capital inflows. The interactive exhibit below shows four charts illustrating...

'Five charts' and 'five more charts' were two of the most read articles on InsuranceLinked so in the spirit of democracy and imaginative titles, here is some more data on M&A and other goings-on in the reinsurance market. Inorganic...

Flood insurance in the US is a mess. While insurers search for ways to grow premiums, they are unable to compete with the National Flood Insurance Program which had accumulated $25 billion in debt before the losses caused by 2017’s hurricanes. Shree...

The final terms of reinsurance contracts due to incept on January 1 kept everyone guessing until the final days of 2017. In the end, the price rises predicted by many reinsurance CEOs proved to be over optimistic as their underwriters were unable...

Reinsurance CEOs were bullish on the pricing environment during the recent Q3 earnings calls. In this update, Nick Martin analyses what is being said about the upcoming January renewal season. Mr...

The influx of 'alternative' capital has meant a qualitative change in the way that the reinsurance market is financed. Events over the summer mean that some structures are being tested for the first time. As anticipated, the the losses...

As the 2017 hurricane season continues to threaten more damage to the eastern United States, the Caribbean and elsewhere, Dr Tim Hall, Dr Richard Dixon and the InsuranceLinked editorial team will continue to follow developments on this...

THIS BLOG IS CLOSED AND INSURANCELINKED'S COVERAGE OF THE @)!& HURRICANE SEASON CONTINUES HERE.     The leaders of the global reinsurance industry spend months each year preparing for September's conference...

This season has been eventful, to say the least. Even though we’re still reeling from Harvey and Irma, and we’re nowhere close to assessing the damage, it’s interesting to step back and estimate the probabilities for some of 2017’s striking...

FROM SEPTEMBER 10 2017 WE WILL BE FOLLOWING HURRICANES HARVEY AND IRMA IN THE MONTE CARLO 2017 LIVE BLOG     The 12-year-long US 'major hurricane' drought is over with the Texas Category 4 landfall of Hurricane...

Deteriorating market conditions have not put off investors who continue to pour money into ILS funds. The AUM of the largest ILS funds grew by $13 billion over the last year. Here are five charts on the current state of the market. 1. In...

It is now late enough in the year to get good readings on the two meteorological conditions that are known to correlate with hurricane activity. NASA's Tim Hall has run his model to predict a 29% higher frequency of hurricanes in Florida...

The Florida peninsula is the most important market for property reinsurance in the world. Each summer, the third most populous state in the union braces itself for another Atlantic hurricane season. In Florida’s esoteric...

The last 18 months has seen a surge in both funding and column inches devoted to InsurTech. Some incumbents have embraced the disruption while other firms are struggling to figure out their first move. Chris Sandilands from Oxbow Partners...

Data from the first few months of 2017 shows that there has been a steep fall in the returns of new catastrophe bonds compared with those issued in the first quarter of 2016. The returns of bonds exposed to US hurricane risk has reached...

Michael Millette is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. Before that, he spent 21 years at Goldman Sachs where he was the Global Head of Structured Finance. In the first part of the interview, he...

In the second part his interview, Michael Millette discusses opportunities beyond natural catastrophe risk and how technology might change the structure of the industry. How has the capital markets investment in insurance...

The data shows that institutional investors remain attracted to insurance-linked funds. Investors are looking for modest returns, larger allocations and better ways to educate their stakeholders about insurance-linked securities. Clear...

2016 saw higher losses and lower returns for reinsurance assets compared to 2015. As catastrophe bond yields fell, the resulting mark-to-market bump improved the performance of those insurance-linked funds that deploy a high proportion...

Reinsurance rates are at long term lows and have slipped again at the key January 1 renewal date. Following a stable period, new catastrophe bonds also priced at lower risk-adjusted rates in 2016 compared with 2015. Optimists noted that...

Two of the big stories in 2016 were Hurricane Matthew and the rapidly increasing interest in InsurTech. Nick Martin looks back at how close the insurance industry came to the worst loss in its history and how InsurTech may be more of an...

The product warning that ‘past performance does not necessarily predict future results’ may be truer for insurance-linked funds than for any other asset class. The heavily skewed distributions of possible fund returns mean that, in any...

This is the second part of the article on the strategic choices made by insurance-linked funds. Click here to read part one. 5. Leverage. Some insurance-linked funds sit on cash, while others use leverage to amplify...

What premium should the owners of the Empire State Building pay for terrorism insurance in 2017? Insurers and reinsurers often need to quantify the risk of events occurring where there is no relevant data to analyse or where the risk...