ILS

A handful of new special purpose insurers (SPIs) were registered in Bermuda in March, including Accordian (sic) Reinsurance II and Mona Lisa Re.

The first quarter results from Bermudian reinsurers Montpelier Re and Validus revealed an uptick in the property premiums written via their managed funds platforms, Blue Capital and AlphaCat.

Repeat insurance-linked securities sponsors Allianz and Travelers may pay just half the risk-adjusted premiums for their latest cat bonds compared to their 2012 iterations, according to analysis by our sister publication Trading Risk.

US state insurers of last resort are holding $150bn of property catastrophe risk, presenting a prime growth opportunity for the alternative reinsurance market, says Nephila Capital founding principal Greg Hagood.

Ace launched a $95mn special purpose vehicle Altair Re to take the number of 2013 sidecars to seven, which are bringing more than $1.1bn of new capital to the sector.

The sponsors of two cat bonds currently on the market have expanded their fundraising targets as indicative pricing on the deals declined.

Allstate is seeking to raise $250mn from its new Sanders Re cat bond issuance after lopping off the top layers of its traditional reinsurance programme, sister publication Trading Risk reported last week.

Aspen Re has become the latest traditional reinsurer to move formally into the convergence space with the unveiling of a capital markets division.

Ace Limited has entered the sidecar arena with the launch of $95mn special purpose vehicle Altair Re to provide additional collateralised capacity for its global reinsurance business.

The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) lifted the size of its planned cat bond to $250mn from a $100mn target after pricing guidance on the deal dropped below the initial lower-end indications, sources said.

The collateralised reinsurance and retrocession markets have seen the greatest growth in the alternative reinsurance space over the past nine months, according to estimates from Guy Carpenter.

The somewhat clunky term "decoupling" is becoming increasingly popular in the insurance linked securities (ILS) market as an explanation for the mismatch in pricing cat risk between alternative and mainstream reinsurance underwriters.