Category: Analysis

Emerging markets provide risk and reward for the industry Emerging market growth has been the economic headline of the last decade and particularly apparent as the developed world has wallowed in the recessionary mire of recent years....

Bermuda steals the lead in fight for ILS market dominance 12 January 2014 Bermuda leads the world in insurance linked securities, having stolen the domicile of choice from close rival The Cayman Islands last year....

Growth in catastrophe bond market set to continue in 2014? In 2013, the catastrophe bond market saw $7.1 billion of new issuance taking the total amount of outstanding bonds to over $20bn for the first time. But a larger and more...

Calm in the Atlantic but Europe takes a buffeting Despite predictions of a stormy Atlantic hurricane season, 2013 was an extremely benign year - the least active in the last 30 years in fact. Just 13 named storms formed during the...

Alternative insurance impact may be felt at January renewals Many traditional reinsurers may be looking ahead to the New Year with a sense of dread amid predictions that prices will take a battering at the January renewals. Suggestions...

Regulations could create globally-trusted brand to replace tarnished UCITS Despite having almost three years to comply with the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), which came into force in July, many fund managers...

Storm surge development a step forward in innovation While the majority of cat bonds continue to cover peak risk in the US, and to a lesser extent Europe and Japan, a spate of recent issuances have included a new set of perils, in...

Queen Street saga opens door to questions about cat bond market correlation Winter is almost upon us and two Munich Re cat bonds are already feeling the chill after being placed on CreditWatch Negative by Standard & Poor’s. First...

In a report released earlier this week, Munich Re summarized a busy third quarter for the ILS market, which saw a number of noteworthy transactions and trends. The report documented only two instances of non-US perils being brought to the...

Software developer AIR Worldwide recently announced an updated version of its risk-modeling platform, Touchstone, which will improve the intelligence-gathering and analytical capacity of its users. Reinsurance providers have already embraced the...

In a much-anticipated address earlier this week, the Bank of England’s head of insurance discussed the growing impact of alternative capital on Britain’s insurance industry. Julian Adams, executive director of Insurance at the UK’s central...

In its detailed summary of the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, Aon Benfield Securities documents the surging interest in catastrophe bonds and other alternative risk transfer methods. The aptly titled report, ‘Capital Revolution – ILS...

Despite catastrophe-induced losses in the first half of 2013 that exceeded the 10-year average, interest in the reinsurance marketplace remains robust, even to the point of drawing words of caution from Amlin’s chief executive. In response to the...

In an effort to better understand the damage risks associated with climate change, members of the insurance industry have enlisted a prominent scientific research firm to examine and document historical weather patterns in North America, specifically...

In its review of cat bond activity during the second quarter of 2013, Aon Benfield Securities cited the closing of thirteen cat bonds, while sounding a note of optimism in general for this form of alternative investment. According to the reinsurance...

Looking ahead to the post-convergence space, Aon Benfield’s latest report on the reinsurance industry outlines a number of significant changes expected to unfold over the next five years. These changes, according to the report, entitled ‘Post-Convergence:...

Broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group (JLT) announced it will acquire the reinsurance brokerage business of Towers Watson for $250m. The deal will more than double the size of JLT’s reinsurance business. Once completed, the merger of the two companies’...

Speaking in front of a large crowd at the Lloyd’s City Dinner earlier this month, chairman John Nelson addressed the current state of the company in its milestone 325th year, as well as the convergence of the insurance, reinsurance and investment...