ILS

Investors should buy cat-exposed reinsurance stocks at the September peak of the US hurricane season rather than batten down the hatches and steer clear of the sector until the storm threat passes.

Secondary trading spreads for US wind catastrophe bonds have risen to levels near the peaks last seen in 2009, according to Swiss Re.

Aon Benfield Securities has launched a set of indices to track the performance of catastrophe bonds, which it says will boost transparency on returns from the insurance-linked securities (ILS) sector.

Broker Willis cleared a US wind futures trade on the IFEX platform at the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE) for the first time last week, in a $1mn block transaction.

Catastrophe bond issues may now reach $4bn-$6bn for 2010 after a bumper second quarter, according to revised forecasts from broker Guy Carpenter.

Allied World Assurance Company Holdings has bought $250mn worth of shares back from founding investor Goldman Sachs, after posting first-half net income growth of 30 percent last week.

Cat bonds in second half of 2010 to equal first; Miller builds cat team; S&P gives and takes

The California Earthquake Authority (CEA) hopes to reduce significant reinsurance expenses by breaking out from under the wing of risk warehouser Swiss Re to sponsor its first cat bond in 2011.

The relentless decline in secondary cat bond pricing caused by investors nervous about the prospect of a heavy US wind season finally came to a halt last month.

The industry loss warranty (ILW) sector was a rare pocket of hard market conditions in the second quarter, bucking the general soft market trend of falling premium prices and an over-supply of insurance capacity.

Lack of objective loss indices is causing difficulties

Flagstone's Q2 loss is example of why sellers have hiked prices and withdrawn capacity