Category: Analysis

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...

A quarterly review of reinsurance pricing metrics The third quarter is a slow month for trading reinsurance and, by itself, the thin data is inconclusive about which way the market is heading. But many participants think that...

InsuranceLinked and NASA's Tim Hall are following the latest developments of Hurricane Matthew. Over the next few days, we will be posting on the latest meteorological forecasts and the likely market impact. ...

NASA’s Dr Tim Hall gives his prognosis for the rest of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season and asks whether the frequency of hurricanes at the end of the season is affected by how things started. Hurricane Hermine made landfall...

This week, insurance executives from around the world are hard at work in the Principality of Monaco. If you couldn't make the 60th 'Rendez Vous de Septembre', InsuranceLinked's live blog is the next best thing. ...

Michael Coles is the managing director of Coles Advisory Partners. He discusses how the last few years have seen an unprecedented level of technological innovation in the insurance industry and what that might mean for the future...

What are some of the most exciting developments in distribution? How might that affect ILS funds? The re/insurance value chain is quite elongated, and there are a lot of premiums coming out of it. The reason we're excited about distribution...

For most insurers and reinsurers, an AM Best rating is a requirement of doing business. The rating agency uses quantitative and qualitative models to evaluate both the market as a whole and individual firms. These models are about to undergo...

A new study by InsuranceLinked estimates that 38% of global ILS fund assets are managed by firms that are headquartered in Bermuda. Specialist ILS funds and related service providers employed approximately 400 people in Bermuda at the...

Rate reductions have continued over the last 12 months, but the rate of rate reductions has also continued to reduce.  Four charts illustrate current pricing levels and how this is affecting reinsurance and ILS returns. This...

NASA's Dr Tim Hall has run his multi-factor model and read the tea leaves. In 2016, the  chance of landfalling hurricanes in the southern states is significantly higher than the long term average. Mississippi has experienced the greatest...

June 1 is the inception date for most contracts in the bellwether Florida reinsurance market. Florida hurricane exposure is the most significant risk to many reinsurance companies and ILS funds. The the mix of catastrophe risk, demographics...

In November 2012, Kweku Adoboli was imprisoned for seven years for a fraud that cost UBS over $2 billion. Rival Swiss bank Credit Suisse is now in the process of placing a bond that will protect it from operational risks like this for...

US ILW prices have held steady since the beginning of the year and secondary cat bond yields finished the quarter at a similar level to 12 months earlier. But talk of the bottom of the market may be wishful thinking as capital continues...

AXA recently bought 46% of microinsurance intermediary MicroEnsure. In this interview, MicroEnsure's CEO explains how a radical simplification of insurance products combined with new, innovative distribution channels are helping insurers...

Year-end earnings calls were full of a new piece of jargon over the last few weeks. "InsurTech" describes a rapidly evolving group of technology startups that are trying (and succeeding) to disrupt various parts of...

Eugene Gurenko is a Lead Insurance Specialist at the joint World Bank/IFC Finance and Markets Global Practice. He has worked at the World Bank Group since 1998 where he has helped to develop catastrophe risk management solutions for the...

Responsible investment strategies have experienced rapid growth in recent years. One report estimates that $6.6 trillion (18%) of US domiciled assets are engaged in responsible investment practices. Robert Howie and Alex Bernhardt...

At last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos, many of the world’s most influential people (and Bono) spent the week discussing humanity’s most significant challenges. Delegates found that this year's biggest challenges were very...