ILS

Standard & Poor's (S&P) has posted a stable outlook on State Farm and RenRe's $100mn joint venture sidecar-style transaction Top Layer Re, matching a recent action on State Farm.

Scor is the latest (re)insurer to set up its own insurance-linked investment fund, setting aside $100mn of seed capital for a dedicated fund that will be known as Atropos.

Convergence executives are hopeful that recent revisions to AIR Worldwide's European windstorm risk model will be positive for the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

Three new catastrophe bond issuances at the start of the third quarter included the first solo US thunderstorm bond from a sponsor new to the market.

French insurer Axa's latest cat bond, Calypso Capital, has closed at almost double initial targets, offering EUR275mn of European wind exposure to insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors.

Willis Re is losing Colin Kiddie, who headed the firm's ILW operations, to rival Guy Carpenter only a week after promoting the executive to head its specialty business.

Cat bond sponsors Swiss Re and Axa closed their latest bond issuances above initial sales targets, as insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors scurried to pick up diversifying assets after a higher than usual concentration of peak US hurricane sales earlier this year.

American Family Mutual Insurance, one of the largest mutual property and casualty insurers in the US, is bringing a cat bond to the market for the first time.

The Interior Secretary of the Philippines is considering pooling the country's calamity funds to leverage international reinsurance purchases, following the Super-Typhoon Megi

Two hedge fund-backed property and casualty (P&C) start-ups are close to defying the soft market by looking to launch later this year, according to (re)insurance entrepreneur Don Kramer.

Further evidence is emerging of the impact the sustained soft market is having on underwriting conditions in the form of the multi-year covers that are increasingly being offered by reinsurers.

The Interior Secretary of the Philippines has floated the idea of pooling the country's ‘calamity funds' to potentially leverage international reinsurance purchases in the wake of super typhoon Megi's strike on the country, according to local media.