March 2016/1

Twia to lift retention; Allied assumes less Aeolus premium; First lottery ILS payout; Structured settlements deal; Cat bond lites to go west; February US tornadoes cost insurers...

Hannover Re fronted EUR4.7bn of limit for collateralised reinsurance writers in 2015, up 52 percent from EUR3.1bn the previous year, according to the company's annual report

Australian carrier IAG drew down A$130mn ($92mn) of cover from its A$450mn aggregate reinsurance programme in 2015, in what would have been one of the more significant claims for ILS funds last year

Run-off specialist Enstar is seeking to raise $700mn of capital for its Aligned Re joint venture with UBS O'Connor

RenaissanceRe raised $62.5mn from third-party investors for its Upsilon vehicle in January 2016, less than half the $153.7mn of subscriptions received in full-year 2015

Amlin earned £16.5mn ($23.5mn) of fee income from Leadenhall Capital Partners in 2015, up from £2.4mn in the prior year before it had consolidated the asset manager onto its balance sheet

A Fairfax subsidiary is suing Michael Millette's start-up Hudson Structured Capital Management for trademark infringement in a Connecticut district court

Cat bond trading slowed in early March amid uncertainty over the outlook for upcoming issuance

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) plans to make further use of "club" cat bond issuances through the Resilience Re platform this year

Swiss Re has recalled its Vita Capital V extreme mortality bond, one year ahead of maturity

The cat bond market is on track to post a strong total for first quarter issuance, although investors remain wary of the deal pipeline slowing down later in the year

The world's biggest catastrophe cedant Zenkyoren is set to renew its vast reinsurance treaty with a new 200bn yen ($1.8bn) top layer, Trading Risk can reveal

A few years ago when the pace of the ILS market's expansion really began picking up, the concept of the sector having "decoupled" from the reinsurance market engine was first mooted

The London market initiative to attract more ILS business to the city is not designed as an attempt to challenge Bermuda's success in the sector, according to International Underwriting Association chairman Malcolm Newman.

TransRe expanded its sidecar support from Pangaea Re and other vehicles to more than $400mn of limit in the January renewals, the company confirmed to Trading Risk

Standardisation will take market to ‘next level'; Risk analyses valued

The ILS market is not yet at a point where its decline in relative value would lead investors to take money off the table, according to panellists at the Sifma IRLS 2016 conference.

More than $900mn of new demand for private reinsurance cover in Florida is expected at this year's June renewals, as a number of carriers look to further reduce their reliance on the state-backed Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF)

Specific structures adapted to the ILS market are likely to be required if alternative capital is to expand more broadly into the corporate insurance sector, panellists at the Sifma IRLS 2016 conference agreed.

Investors may be open to taking an all perils catastrophe bond but other considerations could be restricting such a development, a group of legal executives agreed.

The role of the underwriter will evolve if the insurance industry moves to a leaner way of conducting business, according to former American International Group executive Samir Shah.

Start-up managing general agency (MGA) Ventus Risk Management will look to give ILS funds access to its book of primary insurance risk through a quota share reinsurance programme covering an XL Catlin subsidiary, sources told Trading Risk.