October 2016/1

Stone Ridge Asset Management's three reinsurance funds grew 4 percent in its last quarterly reporting period to reach $4.95bn by the end of July, up from the $4.76bn recorded at the end of April

CEA grows; Fema flood buy; Scales launch; Italian earthquake; Wildfire losses ease; Auto flood losses; Legacy deal for CPPIB

Wholesale broker CRC has launched a new US nationwide all risk and catastrophe facility in partnership with managing general agency (MGA) V3 Insurance Partners.

Sirius is investigating launching a total return reinsurer start-up that would focus on the legacy market, sister publication The Insurance Insider reported.

Cat bond spreads dropped below 4 percent on a loss-free basis by the end of September, according to RMS, as rates continued to edge below yields recorded in 2015 and 2014.

The cat bond market is likely to spring back from the shrinking that occurred in the first half of 2016, according to panellists at the Trading Risk Monte Carlo roundtable.

Currency boosts RBS in ILS; Stone Ridge looks to Lloyd's; ILS Advisers gain

Canadian asset manager Crosswinds has founded a specialty reinsurance company named Crosswinds Re to add to its involvement in the Florida (re)insurance market.

Leadenhall Capital Partners obtained a BBB+ rating from Standard & Poor's (S&P) for two private cat bonds, in a move that will help the ILS manager demonstrate that it has a portfolio capitalised to an investment-grade level.

Cat bond user base to shift; Axa wary on cat bonds

Equity analysts suggested that reinsurers were being optimistic in talking up the prospect of the market finding a pricing floor in 2017, as they warned carriers might have to wait another year for flat renewals

Reinsurance buyers could have more success in lowering rates by opening up all layers of a programme to ILS capital, rather than just trying to push minimum cat bond rates down at the top end of programmes

Reinsurers sought to declare that the market was nearing a pricing floor as the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous kicked off the traditional lead-up to the January renewal season

Specialist investors continue to dominate the ILS landscape but hedge funds have increased their participation after buying new issuance in the past year in response to higher-yielding deals on offer, Aon Securities said in its annual review of the sector.

Cat bond upsizing climbed to new heights for the past year in the third quarter as the $925mn in final quarterly volume of public 144a ILS transactions came in at almost three times the $350mn originally targeted.

Recent research has overturned the traditional assumption that there is no correlation between earthquake risk along the northern and southern parts of the San Andreas Fault in California

Solvency II could drive increased activity in the life ILS sector as insurance companies are forced to hold more capital and look at ways of de-risking that capital, according to leading life experts.

Parametric solutions could offer a way for the ILS market to expand into cyber risk, according to Rick Welsh, CEO at Lloyd's managing general agency (MGA) Sciemus

The (re)insurance industry faces disruption and disintermediation as a result of new technologies, reinsurers warned at the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous last month

The reinsurance industry is dominated by talk of disruptive threats, cutting out loops in the supply chains and getting "closer to the risk".

Aon Securities has appointed Darren Bailey to lead the company's London-based capital markets business, replenishing its UK operation after losing two staff from the unit earlier this summer.

Continuing pressure for broader peril coverage is expected to be one of the themes of the upcoming retro renewals at 1 January, as a handful of buyers made early steps towards securing capacity.