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The Association of British Insurers will be revealing the findings of its latest report into climate change this week at their climate change event. The study which looks into the impact of rising temperatures caused by the changing global climate will sh

It’s time for our monthly look at how the Swiss Re published catastrophe bond price and total return indices are fairing. You can find our commentary from last month here for comparison.

European derivatives exchange Eurex will this week launch contracts for hurricane futures on wind damage for the risk period of January to December 2010. Eurex, jointly operated by Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) and SIX Swiss Exchange, was the first European

Munich Re has issued a press release saying that climate change is one of the biggest challenges faced by mankind. If we don’t They say that there is clear evidence that climate change is a contributing factor to increasing natural catastrophe losses and

What’s the sign of a successful insurance-linked securities issuance? This time last year you would have said just getting to the marketing phase would have been commendable. Then when the market came back to life it was great to get a deal to complete wi

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has officially launched the long awaited Global Index Insurance Facility. I’ve written about the facility in the past when it was still in pilot phase but now it has been launc

Swiss Re have announced completion of a deal to insure the longevity risks associated with a pension fund run by the UK’s Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund, a local government fund. Swiss Re say this is the first pure longevity risk transfer undertak

Insurers are planning to introduce a new product to help companies limit the financial fall-out when their brands or high-profile spokesmen such as Tiger Woods suffer reputational damage.

Choice Environmental, a portfolio company of OTC Global Holdings (OTCGH), has brokered the first CME-cleared snowfall hedging risk instrument – a snowfall binary option contract for Detroit. The contract was a seasonal maximum binary option for January to

So the New York Insurance Exchange is back in the news (via the NY Times) again this week with Gov. David A. Paterson announcing plans for a Lloyd’s of London style insurance and reinsurance exchange. Aiming to specialise in complex risks such as hurrican

Malawi has experienced several catastrophic droughts over the past few decades. The impact of these shocks has been far reaching, and the resulting macroeconomic instability has been a major constraint to growth and poverty reduction in Malawi. This paper

Winter in Chicago means snow. And snow means sledding, shoveling, scraping and… binary option derivative contracts? In December, Chicago-based CME Group Inc., began listing an expanded class of weather contracts based on snowfall levels in five cities aro

Tradition Re, the US reinsurance division of interdealer broker Tradition, has completed a Dutch auction on behalf of a reinsurer aiming to hedge risk during the 2010 hurricane season in Florida. Offers were submitted in the form of point price levels, as

Regulators and dealers have expressed caution about a Citi proposal to design derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis, arguing the sellers of such protection may not be in a position to pay out if markets crumble.

Add the UK’s financial services regulator to the cacophony of voices expressing concern about so-called life settlements.

Swiss Re is preparing to launch a new catastrophe bond issue under it’s Successor program. The Successor X Ltd. Series 2010-1 notes are designed to provide Swiss Re with protection against U.S. hurricane and European windstorm risks for a period of three

A shortage of risk protection buyers may be responsible for low trading volumes in exchange-traded catastrophe products, but does not represent the interest from investors looking to gain exposure to insurance risk, according to market traders.

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury Department, as chair of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, submitted for publication a Notice in the Federal Register seeking comments on the long-term availability and affordability of terrorism

Part I, "A Broad Overview," details the evolution of Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS). Once considered to be an alternative form of risk transfer, ILS have become a mainstream method for transferring risk from insurers to the Capital markets. Parts II an

News reaches us this morning that Aon Benfield Securities are launching the Aon Benfield ILS Indices which will provide a quantitative monthly view of insurance-linked securities returns since December 2000.

Catco Investment Management is set to launch in Bermuda during Q4 this year as a collateralised catastrophe reinsurance fund with $1b of backing. The fund is being launched by ex-Oxygen Re broker Tony Belisle.

Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking, a division of the French investment bank, has announced the launch of a contingent capital facility for insurers and reinsurers. The new facility, known as Event Driven Guaranteed Equity (EDGETM), provides

We are big supporters of microinsurance (particularly weather index-linked insurance) so it’s great to receive a press release which demonstrates exactly what this sector can do to support rural communities and reimburse them financially when weather cond

In this the first of a new series of interviews with key industry figures, Artemis talks to Barney Schauble of Nephila Capital. Mr. Schauble has been involved in the weather risk market and in the securitization of insurance risks for many years and is hi

An project called Food Early Solutions for Africa (FESA) has been working on validating a microinsurance product for African farmers which will use satellite technology to measure drought conditions. This allows them to create an index against which a mic

Swiss Re have begun marketing for two new series of mortality catastrophe bond notes to be issued by the Vita Capital IV Ltd. special purpose vehicle which is domiciled in the Cayman Islands. These two series of notes will add to the two series Swiss Re i

A new microinsurance product is targeting cooperatives in the Philippines to give them an affordable source of parametric insurance to protect them against the knock on effects to their loan portfolios from extreme weather events involving wind and rainfa

The Philippines is one of those nations which is extremely exposed to natural disasters and weather risks. From flooding, to wildfires to super-typhoons (like Megi which is currently impacting part of the Philippines) any country so exposed to disasters n

The U.N. World Food Programme has donated 20 automated weather stations to the National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia. The stations have been installed this week and aim to provide real-time data for both climate early warning and weather risk managem

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has seen its first snowfall contract trade in the past week. With winter approaching companies are beginning to think about winter weather and seeking to hedge their exposures to either too much snow or too little.