Category: The Market

Live updates of Hurricane Dorian. As usual, our hurricane blog is manned by our team of crack meteorologists - Dr Dick Dixon in London and Dr Timothy Hall in the US. ...

Over the last 12 months, the AUM of the leading reinsurance fund managers has fallen for the first time in 20 years. But the experience of individual funds has been extremely varied. Some have experienced large losses and/or redemptions whilst others...

So far in 2019, new catastrophe bonds have priced at higher spreads than in the first half of 2017 and 2018. There was also a greater variance in the pricing as investors try to factor in the idiosyncrasies of each issue. In the secondary market,...

The latest data indicates that between 2014 and 2018 the ILS fund index would have returned 2.2% in a year experiencing an average level of natural catastrophe losses. The same level of annual loss would have generated a return of 5.9% between...

Despite challenging market conditions, investors continue to increase allocations to reinsurance funds. For now, reinsurance seems to be providing relative value compared to other asset classes. The risk premium for high-yield bonds...

If you are steering clear of the yachts, sunshine and champagne, you can still keep up with Hurricane Florence and the latest news from the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous on the InsuranceLinked live blog. ...

Here are four interactive charts that illustrate the state of the market.                                                                                                            ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...