May 2014/1

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa) has softened its previous calls for a more tightly monitored ILS sector, although its latest bi-annual financial stability report still highlights the potential for excess demand to lead to under-pricing of risk.

Pillar profits up for Alleghany; GreyCastle buys XL life business; Dutch pension fund SPF eyes up cat bonds

How does the US hurricane season impact ILS valuations?

Over the past year the number of reinsurer sidecars and collateralised vehicles has proliferated, allowing reinsurers to leverage their underwriting expertise and distribution networks and giving investors exposure to unique asset classes

Nephila Capital is among the reinsurers that have provided new primary insurance capacity for expansive US hurricane managing general agency (MGA) AmRisc in 2014, sister publication The Insurance Insider reported

Expansive Florida homeowners' insurer Federated National (FedNat) is increasing the limit purchased on the private market portion of its cat reinsurance programme by 138 percent and doubling its retention, the company disclosed

Investors are expanding the array of risks they are interested in as they seek to diversify their reinsurance portfolios, according to Mike Millette, global head of structured finance at Goldman Sachs

Risk management technology firm ImageCat has launched Inhance, web-based software for assessing exposure data quality and disaster risk management in the (re)insurance sector.

Alternative reinsurers and cat bond investors captured 17.6 percent of premiums ceded by the top 10 Florida personal and commercial residential insurers in 2013, up from 14 percent in 2012, according to data collected by Trading Risk

The first African catastrophe insurance pool has launched to protect local states against the risk of drought.

Nephila and other alternative reinsurance providers have taken a large portion of catastrophe risk on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) insurance programme at its 1 May renewal, Trading Risk understands.

The advent of alternative capital into the reinsurance market may have brought about a long-term drop in catastrophe premiums but this does not mean that pricing will fall "inexorably" every year, according to Nephila Advisors business development director Adam Beatty.