Best of Artemis, week ending 29th November 2020

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 29th November 2020, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

Ten most read articles on Artemis.bm, week ending 29th November 2020:

1. Catastrophe bonds & related ILS issuance hits record at $14.24bn in 2020
   Catastrophe bond and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) issuance has already reached a new annual record in 2020, exceeding $14 billion for the very first time, according to Artemis’ data on the cat bond and ILS marketplace.
2. Alphabet’s (Google’s) first catastrophe bond priced on-target at $237.5m
   The first catastrophe bond to be sponsored directly for the benefit of Alphabet, Inc., the holding company for Google and its many units, has now been priced on-target at the mid-point of guidance, while the Phoenician Re Ltd. (Series 2020-1)  cat bond transaction will close at the same $237.5 million size it launched at.
3. Reinsurance could take brunt of COVID second wave losses: Barclays
   Reinsurance capital could find itself on the hook for the largest share of COVID-19 losses from second waves of the virus sweeping Europe, with primary insurers largely happy with their loss-picks so far, analysts at Barclays have said.
4. Rate rises + tighter terms + dislocation + quality cedes = higher ILS return potential
   Insurance-linked securities (ILS) market return potential is on the rise and in some cases the portfolios constructed, or added to, at the January 1st 2021 reinsurance renewals, are going to offer significantly higher return potential to investors.
5. U.S. wildfire losses reach $11.5bn after October: Jefferies
   Insurance and reinsurance industry losses from wildfires in the United States are now estimated to have reached around $11.5 billion, making 2020 the third most costly wildfire season on record for the market.
6. Cohen & Co’s second re/insurance SPAC taking Metromile public, with Hudson Structured support
   INSU Acquisition Corp. II, the second insurance, reinsurance and insurtech investment focused Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) launched by fixed income financial services focused investment specialist Cohen & Company, LLC, is taking insurtech Metromile public in a deal that also sees ILS and reinsurance investment manager Hudson Structured participating.
7. Multi-year hard market like 2001 possible in reinsurance: Jefferies
   An aggregation of similar inflationary factors to those seen in 2001 means the reinsurance market may see a multi-year hard market, according to analysts at Jefferies.
8. SCOR’s Atropos ILS fund AuM exceeds $1bn, SCOR IP and Coriolis $2.4bn
   SCOR Investment Partners, the asset management company of the global reinsurance group SCOR, has continued to add new capital to one of its core insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund strategies, the Atropos, which has now exceeded the $1 billion mark in terms of assets under management.
9. Swiss Re doubles new Matterhorn Re cat bond to $300m, as pricing drops
   Global reinsurance firm Swiss Re looks set for another good result from its latest visit to the catastrophe bond market, as its new Matterhorn Re Ltd. (Series 2020-5) transaction has now doubled in size, while at the same time its coupon pricing has fallen to below the guidance range.
10. Industry needs to contain cyber and intangible risks: Prospectus 2021
    Within both the market and contracts the exclusion of communicable diseases is unsurprisingly a key focus, but there are other, similarly difficult to predict losses that companies should be examining, according to industry experts.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular, some of which were published over a week ago. There were 32 new articles published in the last week. To ensure you always stay up to date with Artemis and never miss a story subscribe to our weekly email newsletter which is delivered every Wednesday.

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