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"In this eBook leading economists, lawyers, and investors examine the case for issuing GDP-linked bonds, the obstacles to market development, ways of overcoming them, and what such a security might look like in practice."

"The federal government of Mexico has cited new “innovations” that improve the coverage of its latest catastrophe, which was secured as part of the World Bank’s $1.36 billion multi-country Pacific Alliance cat bond issuance that completed recently."

"Decentralization means the removal of a middleman or central authority that has to administer trades and bets. As a result, fees are significantly reduced because there’s no third party involvement necessary. Blockchains are trustless environments which mean participants can simply enter a predictive contract without the need of a broker to manage the trade. With a centralized platform, information regarding the prediction market might be withheld by the central authority to give them an advantage over the market participants. With a decentralized system, there is no central authority, and all information regarding the market is publicly available to everyone."

"The World Bank sees the ability of its Treasury to mobilise fixed income capital to fund sustainability as a key piece of its mandate, with disaster risk transfer, in the form of catastrophe bonds, insurance and weather risk trades, seen as important tools to protect against the erosion of specific countries development gains."

"The first catastrophe bonds to benefit all four member nations of the Pacific Alliance trade bloc in Latin America is set to increase in size, as the mooted $1 billion cat bond issuance has now had its target increased to as much as $1.39 billion of earthquake risk coverage for the region."

"The first catastrophe bond covering earthquake risks from the government of Colombia is expected to be launched within a matter of weeks, according to the country’s Minister of Finance and Public Credit, as the country looks to capital market sources to improve its disaster risk transfer and financing."

"Following the devastating impacts of hurricanes Irma and Maria in the Caribbean discussion has once again turned to how to secure an increased amount of parametric disaster risk financing for the region, with a regional catastrophe bond issuance rising up the agenda once again."

"The World Bank actively working to emulate its successful establishment of the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) for other humanitarian crises, such as famine, including the use of financial market risk transfer instruments, such as the pandemic catastrophe bonds and swaps."

"This document has been developed in response to a request from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) as part of Words into Action Guideline on National Disaster Risk Assessment: Governance System, Methodologies, and Use of Result. This module provides governments with a framework for risk assessment to support development of sovereign risk financing and risk transfer programmes. It also offers a checklist for conducting the underpinning risk analysis to guide the design of such programmes."

"Insurance industry think tank, the Geneva Association (GA), in partnership with the International Development Forum (IDF), has released guidelines in support of sovereign risk financing and transfer, providing governments around the world with vital risk assessment frameworks."

"The insurance-linked securities (ILS) market and providers of capital market backed reinsurance capacity can help with the job of narrowing the flood risk protection gap in the wake of hurricane Harvey, according to Rick Miller Managing Director – Co-Head of Insurance Linked Securities at Jardine Lloyd Thompson Capital Markets."

"As early estimates of damages from hurricane Harvey point towards an overall economic impact in the low tens of billions of dollars with flooding likely to have caused the majority, the National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP) reinsurance layer looks increasingly at risk of paying out."

"If the NFIP were to approach bond investors, they'd have to confront the dollars and cents of their business model and potentially change the program in politically unpopular ways."

"Most people with flood insurance buy policies backed by the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program. As of April, less than one-sixth of homes in Houston’s Harris County had federal coverage, according to Aon. That would leave more than 1 million homes unprotected in the county. Coverage rates are similar in neighboring areas. Many cars also will be totaled."

"Here we review recent GC Capital Ideas posts concerning the emergence of public-private partnerships addressing catastrophe risk across the globe."

"The Philippines government is still planning to sponsor a sovereign catastrophe bond, in order to further enhance its national level disaster risk financing, and the recently announced parametric disaster insurance pilot is expected to be expanded to cover the entire country."

Fast-growing Gibraltar licensed online lottery provider the Lottoland Group has renewed its Fortuna collateralized reinsurance or insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction at an upsized EUR 120 million, increasing the size of its capital markets-backed jackpot insurance coverage.

Risks to the electric grid due to severe weather, natural catastrophes and climate change can cause losses in the billions of dollars, and while threats make our energy future more uncertain there is a role for risk transfer and potentially the capital markets in helping to stave off economic disruption.

The latest catastrophe bond that will provide a source of reinsurance risk transfer for Mexico’s Fund for Natural Disasters (El Fondo de Desastres Naturales), the IBRD / FONDEN 2017 multi-peril cat bond, has secured its targeted $360 million size, while the pricing has now been fixed at the lowest end of reduced guidance.

Public entities' use of capital markets-based risk transfer capacity for the assumption of natural disaster losses, such as the cost of emergency relief and infrastructure and property damage has demonstrated success in de-risking public sector balance sheets. Capital markets innovators are beginning to leverage the outcomes achieved in the natural disaster sphere to other types of public sector severity losses, notably pandemic diseases.

"The target size of the recently launched IBRD / FONDEN 2017 multi-peril catastrophe bond, which will secure a source of reinsurance risk transfer for Mexico’s Fund for Natural Disasters (El Fondo de Desastres Naturales), has been increased by 24% with the deal now expected to result in issuance of up to $360 million of notes."

"The African agriculture industry is in the throngs of change surrounding the technology, regulation and distribution of index based insurance – developments which are improving the operating environment for insurers as demand for insurance solutions grows."

"The World Bank has called for the ongoing development of its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF), to incentivise greater investment in preparedness, and take advantage of the opportunity to deliver business interruption (BI) cover for the private sector as it works towards PEF-2."

"The Peruvian government and the Ministry of Agriculture have chosen to expand the country’s El Seguro Agrario Catastrófico (SAC), or the Agricultural Catastrophe Insurance scheme, to include five more regions, with the launch of an international tender, according to reports."

Weather risk management, risk transfer, pricing, data, broking and structuring firm, Meteo Protect’s weather insurance platform has been launched by the National Union of Potato Producers (UNPT) of France, providing farmers with resilience against climate and weather-related risks.

Alternative capital sources comprise 17 percent of total global reinsurance capital. As early as ten years ago, alternative capital accounted for only three to five percent of the total. Deployment of catastrophe bonds and collateralized reinsurance primarily occurs in more mature Asian markets such as Japan and Australia, but cedents throughout Asia may benefit - although indirectly - in the coming years as third party investors search for diversification through new lines of business and geographies.

Global reinsurance firm Swiss Re, with the assistance of local specialist insurer Taiwan Fire & Marine Insurance, has developed the first parametric aquaculture insurance solution covering fish farmers in Taiwan against extreme rainfall.

"The World Bank Group’s global development institute, International Finance Corporation (IFC), will collaborate with Indonesia’s PT Reasuransi MAIPARK to develop parametric insurance solutions for the country’s agribusinesses against the increasing threat and costs of natural disaster and climate events."