Insurance

According to our industry sources, a preliminary estimate of insurance and reinsurance market losses from hurricane Sally has been pegged at between $1.5 billion and $3.9 billion by catastrophe risk modeller AIR Worldwide. This is not an official, publicly announced industry loss estimate from AIR, we understand, with that expected to be released over the…

While Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E), the wildfire stricken Californian electrical utility, made its $11 billion of subrogation payments in July, the benefits for insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds are expected to take as long as a year to be fully accounted for in the valuation of their exposed ILS and reinsurance assets. Part of the…

White Bear Capital, the holding company of Blenheim Underwriting and a Lloyd’s focused insurance and reinsurance underwriting operation that counts ILS specialist Nephila Capital as a key strategic investor, has added £80 million more in funding from special situations focused investment house Alchemy Partners. White Bear Capital intends to continue to pursue a third-party capital…

Hurricane Sally’s late intensification before landfall yesterday is expected to mean that overall private insurance and reinsurance market losses from the storm reach into the low billions, with any impact to ILS positions expected to be minimal. Photo by: Tony Giberson, Pensacola News Journal As we explained just prior to hurricane Sally’s landfall yesterday, the…

Western U.S. wildfires so far this year have damaged or destroyed around 9,657 residential and commercial structures, while burning more than 5 million acres and the toll for the insurance and reinsurance industry could be as much as $8 billion already, according to Moody’s. Image: Noah Berger / AP. Moody’s Investors Service said that insured…

Should uncertainty over eventual losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic result in the trapping of significant amounts of retro capital at the end of 2020, the upwards pressure on rates in the market should be expected to persist, Philipp Rüede of Swiss Re said. Speaking to us in a recent interview, Rüede, the Head of…

Private equity investment giant Blackstone has thrown its weight behind Brit’s algorithmic, follow-form Lloyd’s syndicate Ki, investing alongside Brit parent Fairfax in a $500m capital raise for the new venture. Ki describes itself as the “first fully digital and algorithmically-driven Lloyd’s syndicate” aiming to follow performing underwriting units in the Lloyd’s market, by allocating its…