Many central banks are contemplating whether to issue a central bank digital currency (CDBC). CDBC has certain potential benefits, including the possibility that it can bear interest.
It has been the biggest craze in investment of the last two years - the idea that creating your own crypto-currency through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is the route to riches. But now an academic study has revealed just how many of these ICOs end up disappearing without trace after a short while.
It may have lost much of its euphoric luster mood in 2018, but that doesn't mean that the crypto space has been abandoned by institutional investors. Quite the contrary: according to Fortune, none other than billionaire Steve Cohen has decided to join the bitcoin party and has invested in a Autonomous Partners, a relatively new hedge fund that is acquiring both cryptocurrencies and blockchain-…
An open, technology-driven, programmatic reinsurance risk placement marketplace has been announced as ready for business by Tremor Technologies, Inc., which the company hopes will make the placement and matching of risk with the right capital more efficient. Tremor Technologies is a Greenwich, CT based insurance technology (insurtech) start-up and the company said today that its […]Tremor…
Unsurprisingly, managing agencies in the Lloyd’s of London insurance and reinsurance market would like to see insurance-linked securities (ILS) as a permanent fixture and efficient capital options more readily accessible. The Lloyd’s Market Association (LMA) polled senior executives from 25 managing agencies and found that support for ILS structures and ILS capital was high among […]…
Global reinsurance giant Munich Re has followed suit with much of the market, in electing to pass on more premiums to de-risk at a time when the improved market conditions have allowed it to grow its underwriting book on the front-end. As major reinsurers have been taking advantage of higher available rates at the renewals […]Munich Re using more sidecars, less traditional retro in its de-…
The losses suffered by Japanese insurance firms after the extreme rainfall and flooding in July are rising into the billions of dollars, with leading companies having reported their losses recently and claims already paid having surpassed $715 million. The rainfall in early July caused at least 200 deaths in Japan, as well as the flooding […]Japanese insurer losses from July rains &…
Catastrophe risk modelling firm AIR Worldwide has released an updated version of its United States wildfire risk model, a timely update given the impactful start to the California wildfire season in 2018. AIR said that the updated wildfire risk model will offer users, largely insurance, reinsurance and ILS market interests, a comprehensive view of wildfire […]Updated U.S. wildfire…
AXIS Capital has announced the hiring and appointment of a new Global Head of Ceded Reinsurance, hiring Anne Kelly from U.S. primary insurer Travelers into the role. Kelly will take on a role that will see her responsible for leading the AXIS’ Ceded Re reinsurance buying function across all of the firms insurance product lines. […]AXIS hires Anne Kelly from Travelers to lead global…
The amount of alternative capital in the global reinsurance industry, so capital provided by insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds, investors and structures, has now reached a new high of $95 billion and as a result contributes 16% of global reinsurance capital, according to Aon. Alternative capital growth in reinsurance continues to outpace traditional reinsurance capital, with […]…
The level of activity in pension de-risking as a whole has been high in 2018 so far, with longevity swaps amounting to £2.3 billion transacted, along with £8.1 billion of bulk annuities deals. But Willis Towers Watson questions the availability of capacity for the end of this year. With more than £10 billion of buy-in, […]Longevity swap activity up, but capacity questions raised for year-…
The government of the United Kingdom is continuing to encourage other countries to look towards the UK and its recently enacted insurance-linked securities (ILS) regulatory and tax framework as a potential avenue for ILS and catastrophe bond issuance, with Brazil the latest country to be courted. Ever since the enactment of the UK’s regulatory and […]UK courting Brazil to use its…
Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending 12th August 2018, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish. Ten most viewed articles on Artemis.bm, […]Best of Artemis, week ending 12th August…
The U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the latest to reduce its forecast for the numbers of storms and hurricanes that will occur during the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, as its Climate Prediction Center raises the likelihood of a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season to 60%. Back in May when NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center […]NOAA lowers 2018…
A number of industry-loss warranty (ILW) contracts providing retrocessional reinsurance are set to pay out after the latest updates to third-party data providers estimates of insurance industry losses caused by last year’s hurricane Irma. At the beginning of July the industry loss estimate for hurricane Irma passed another key ILW trigger point we understand, resulting […]More ILW…
Bermudian insurance and reinsurance group Arch Capital is back in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) and capital market for another and even larger slice of collateralized reinsurance for its mortgage insurance book, marketing a $653.3 million Bellemeade Re 2018-2 Ltd. transaction. This is Arch Capital Group’s fifth mortgage insurance linked note or mortgage insurance linked securities (…
Watford Re, Bermudian specialist re/insurer Arch Capital and asset manager Highbridge Principal Strategies third-party capital backed total-return reinsurance venture, continued its trend towards portfolio growth in the second-quarter, reporting another 15% jump in premiums underwritten. This follows a huge almost 40% increase in gross premiums underwritten in the first-quarter of the year,…