ILS

Canny retro buying enabled Tokio Millennium Re to reduce its net Sandy loss to a mere $0.5mn - equivalent to one-hundredth of the firm's $52.4mn US crop loss - the company's 2012 annual report shows.

Florida Citizens Property Insurance has given cat reinsurers a boost by upping the traditional open market portion of its cat programme by more than $100mn, The Insurance Insider can reveal.

Catastrophe reinsurers are readying for a tough battle at the mid-year US wind renewal amid a growing capital markets presence that threatens to lead to tumbling rates and underutilised capacity, the April edition of The Insurance Insider reveals today

Citizens is placing more than $100mn of additional limit in the traditional open market portion of its reinsurance programme this year, after coming in well under budget on its most recent Everglades Re cat bond issuance

The key driver in creating a buyers' market for US property cat reinsurance at the forthcoming 1.6 and 1.7 renewals is mounting non-traditional capacity, which is adding to record industry capital levels

The appetite of collateralised reinsurers for writing aggregate cover has already been strongly demonstrated with examples including AIG and ICAT's restructures. The trend will continue...

Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance is marketing a new $100mn cat bond, called Pelican Re, while the North Carolina wind pools' Tar Heel Re issuance has closed at $500mn

The cat bond market is softening rapidly, with average premiums or rates-on-line down by 3 percent over the past quarter

The polemic swirling around the potentially disruptive influence of new capital, which is arriving in the reinsurance sector via inflows into ILS funds, has been building steadily since last summer, but the tone of the debate has become noticeably more strident and shrill in recent weeks

Catastrophe reinsurers are preparing for a brutal mid-year US wind renewal that threatens to bring tumbling rates and underutilised capacity

The riskier additional layer of Nationwide Mutual's Caelus Re III cat bond has upsized from $225mn to $320mn and closed at the lower end of initial pricing guidance, sources said.

The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) has come to market with the first non-US peril cat bond of the year, seeking $100mn of cover against Turkish quake risk, sister publication Trading Risk has reported.