May 2013/2

Catastrophe bond spreads tightened significantly during the first quarter as pricing "decoupled" from the traditional reinsurance market, said GC Securities in its review of first quarter activity in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market.

A trio of cat bonds have increased in size as pricing continued to slip below initial forecasts during the marketing process, sister publication Trading Risk has reported.

Following the sudden departure of JLT executive Vyvienne Wade last week, The Insurance Insider steps back from the news to reflect on the wider issues raised by the loss of the broker's lone female board member

Three of the big four listed Lloyd's (re)insurers lifted their gross written premiums in the first quarter.

Following the hype that surrounded RMS(one) at its unveiling in Boston last week, the product received a cautiously optimistic welcome from a number of (re)insurance executives.

Munich Re and Aspen have agreed to migrate their proprietary modelling systems onto the newly launched RMS(one) platform, along with a host of other industry partners that have signed up to support the risk modeller's latest product offering.

The Insurance Insider attended the lavish Exceedance 2013 launch event for RMS(one) in Boston last week to see whether the hype is worth it...

(Re)insurers should reconsider their approach to "safe assets" and diversify their portfolios to include a hedge against inflation and rising interest rates, experts told delegates at InsiderScope New York 2013 last week

Some traditional reinsurers are yet to "adapt" to the new reality of significant alternative capacity, be it in the form of cat bonds, sidecars or collateralised reinsurers, according to Aspen Re CEO James Few

Capital management is a key tenet of managing risk in an underwriting operation, according to Stephen Friedman, chairman of private equity firm and insurance investor Stone Point Capital

Non-traditional capacity is set to put pressure on rates for index-linked and retro products in the second half of the year as un-deployed funds are redirected from the saturated reinsurance market, according to Validus Re CEO Kean Driscoll

"True convergence" has now occurred as plummeting cat bond prices and rates for collateralised capacity have crossed over with traditional capacity, according to Bryon Ehrhart, chairman of Aon Benfield's investment banking group.