Insurance

Insurance and reinsurance market losses from Australia’s series of summer catastrophe loss events have now risen to a new high of almost AU $5.1 billion, according to the Insurance Council of Australia. When we last covered these loss events, which range from severe convective weather related hail storms, to flooding and rain bearing storms, and…

A new insurance-linked securities (ILS) risk securitisation facilitator and risk transfer consultancy named Replexus Group has been launched by Cedric Edmonds, formerly at Swiss ILS manager Solidum Partners. Edmonds left Solidum in recent months, returning to the United Kingdom to launch a new venture. During his time at Solidum Partners, Edmonds had been responsible for…

Reinsurance sidecars as a source of protection are in high-demand right now, as ceding companies look to bring third-party capital support into their business models to help buffer against any potential downside caused by catastrophe losses through the year ahead. Our sources said that demand for reinsurance sidecar capacity is perhaps as high as it…

Weather hedging seems to have worked as intended for Star Group (formerly Star Gas Partners) in the first-quarter of 2020, as higher temperatures in the United States triggered a payout under the energy providers weather derivatives arrangements. Star Group has been using weather derivatives to hedge out the impacts of temperature variability on its bottom-line…

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association’s (TWIA) new catastrophe bond is the latest issuance to have shifted domicile to Singapore, with the special purpose reinsurance vehicle used for the transaction being named Alamo Re II Pte. Ltd. The transaction was launched to the cat bond investment community this week, but we were incorrect in naming the…

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly stunted primary catastrophe bond issuance, for the most part, deals will get done and it’s possible that activity in the second-half of the year exceeds expectations, according to Paul Schultz, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Aon Securities. As part of our series of video interviews with experts from across…

Market forces suggest that 2021 could see the hardest property and casualty (P&C) insurance and reinsurance market conditions for a long time, according to analysts at Wells Fargo Securities. The stars are aligning in the P&C re/insurance space, with losses set to flow from the Covid-19 pandemic and the end-result being the hardest market conditions…

U.S. primary insurance giant Allstate has reported $632 million pre-tax of catastrophe losses from April 2020, largely driven by severe convective storms and severe weather events. It’s a heavy start to the year for the annual aggregation of losses against Allstate’s reinsurance provided by its Sanders Re catastrophe bonds. The annual risk period for a…