June 2010/1

Two US subsidiaries of UK insurer Aviva Group have completed a $325mn Regulation XXX reserve financing deal with Credit Agricole, continuing a series of deals predicted by Trading Risk.

German reinsurer Munich Re and transformer vehicle Allianz Risk Transfer (ART) have chosen European industry loss index Perils AG as the trigger on a EUR50mn private capital markets transaction.

Risk modelling firm Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has launched a new longevity model, which will provide a long-term measure of the risk of pensioners living longer.

French insurance giant Axa has re-approached the capital markets with its fourth motor insurance securitisation, issuing EUR97.9mn in the latest Series D notes from its Sparc Europe shelf facility.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) has lowered credit ratings on Swiss-based transformer vehicle Allianz Risk Transfer (ART) by one notch to AA-, to reflect the impending expiry of the bulk of its intragroup business.

The first named storm of the season, Alex, is likely to hit Northern Mexico with hurricane strength winds in the middle of the week, although there is a small chance that it will stray as far North as Houston or Dallas, forecasters said early today (28 June).

Karen Clark, of the eponymous firm, is a leading expert in catastrophe risk assessment and management, working for more than 25 years in the field. Clark developed the first hurricane catastrophe model and founded the first catastrophe modelling company, Applied Insurance Research (AIR), in 1987. She shares her thoughts on the 2010 hurricane forecasts...

Despite talk of resilience and risk picking in the Sunshine State, the dynamics of a traditional property casualty reinsurance market full of surplus capacity held sway at the key 1.6 Florida renewal.

The key US cat renewal date of 1 June this year - which was characterised by excess traditional capacity and falling rates - served to underline the steady presence of collateralised reinsurance in the property cat market.

Climate Exchange plc, the parent company of the IFEX cat futures trading platform is being sold to the InterContinental Exchange (ICE), in a £395mn deal which will be effective in early July this year.

Dedicated cat funds - usually considered protection sellers of industry loss warranty (ILW) and cat derivatives contracts - have become buyers of cover in an effort to hedge heavy US wind exposures and potential Deepwater Horizon losses.

Trading of 2010 catastrophe derivatives on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE) reached $44mn as the US wind season officially opened this month.