ILS

Soft reinsurance markets may help to boost insurance-linked security (ILS) sales next year, according to asset manager Baldwin & Lyons Capital Markets.

Investor demand for peak US wind bonds will strengthen in the fourth quarter after tailing off mid-year, broker Aon Benfield Securities said in its third-quarter report on the insurance-linked securities sector.

French insurer Axa has launched its first European wind catastrophe bond, as tipped by The Insurance Insider's sister publication Trading Risk.

Hurricane Paula, the category 2 storm off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula which is bound for Cuba, may cost the insurance industry up to $200mn, according to an early loss estimate from catastrophe modelling firm Eqecat.

Investor appetite for extreme mortality exposure is about to be tested with a new offering of notes under Swiss Re's long-standing Vita series of transactions.

French investment bank Société Générale launched a contingent capital facility for (re)insurers last month only weeks after Gallic reinsurer Scor secured a three-year EUR150mn contingent capital deal from Swiss bank UBS.

Groupama and Axa have issued 2010 Euro wind bonds, with investors keen to diversify their securitised cat exposures

Demand to ringfence profits following light Q3 storm losses

Asian typhoon Fanapi may cause insurable damages of between $500mn-$1bn, modelling firm Eqecat predicts.

UK regulator the Financial Services Authority has signalled its intent to step up cross-border cooperation by concluding an agreement with the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra)

Cat bond investors are lining up to buy the first pure European wind bond of the season - French insurer Groupama's EUR100mn Green Valley II offer.

French reinsurer Scor has seeded a dedicated insurance-linked investment fund, Atropos, with $100mn of capital and hopes to start raising third party capital from October, reports The Insurance Insider's sister publication Trading Risk.