Insurance archive
Every Insurance story, newest first. 406 stories
1 story
- The Wrap
NAIC's $1.2 trillion private credit letter reaches Bermuda's $1.52 trillion reinsurance book
The letter's ratings and valuation reviews set what private credit costs to hold on ceded books where the US supplies 82 per cent of business and Japan 11 per cent.
11 stories
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
82% decides what Japan's 11% is worth
Bermuda's long-term reinsurers manage $1.52 trillion and count the United States for 82 per cent of ceded business, Japan for 11 — and the rulebooks in Tokyo and at the NAIC will decide which number grows.
- The Wrap
$785 billion is bidding against itself at the top of the tower
Record capital has made the top of the reinsurance tower cheap while 84% of US earthquake exposure sits uncovered, and January is when the industry finds out whether the new money writes terms or just rates.
- Insurer portfolios
The small-loan convexity hedge in agency MBS is wearing out
Home price growth has been resetting the collateral behind agency MBS even as the sector's option-adjusted spread tightened.
- Insurer portfolios
Insurers should buy the takeout, not the bridge loan
In a half year that produced $179 billion of CMBS, the fastest-growing vehicles are the ones a general account is worst paid to hold.
- Insurance regulation
NAIC answers Warren with a $1.2 trillion private credit perimeter and the charge behind it
The letter to Senator Warren sizes the book; the ratings and valuation reviews inside it decide what holding it costs.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Record reinsurance capital is not closing the catastrophe gap
A record $785 billion in reinsurer capital and a record cat bond year have made the top of the tower cheaper while the 84% of US earthquake exposure that carries no coverage at all remains untouched.
- The Wrap
Rowan draws the line, and Bermuda is the destination
Two years before the NAIC charge, offshore reinsurance is already re-sorting toward Bermuda.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Fitch's 86 per cent on terms outranks its 60 on price
Reinsurers expect to sell property cat for less in January, and the survey's own numbers show they expect to sell it with less protection.
- Insurance regulation
Rowan wants the Cayman arbitrage closed. Bermuda wins if it is.
The NAIC's capital charge for non-reciprocal jurisdictions is due at the end of 2027, and it will re-sort offshore reinsurance before it shrinks it.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Moody's $700B gap is a terms test for ILS
The capital-markets pool is 280 times the property-casualty one; the scarce resource is a parametric trigger cedents will actually hold.
- The Wrap
Liberty Mutual builds its own structurer for large commercial risk
Two hires, a week apart, put capital-markets talent on both sides of the policy, and the reporting lines say Liberty intends to quote the structure alongside it.
7 stories
- Insurer portfolios
The general account's constraint is capital text, not yield
Life insurers are being told to add three asset classes, but the charge attached to holding them is still being drafted
- Insurance regulation
Premia Re's A- rests on a very strong balance sheet
AM Best's stable outlook waits on legacy closes, not a casualty turnaround, to restore the bottom line.
- The Wrap
Aon's quota share moves the soft market's margin up a layer
Three percent of a catastrophe line sold at a five percent discount turns the broker's placement book into an index that pays the packager and leaves the lead market holding the terms.
- Insurance Credit
AM Best turns positive on Palms as the A stays put
A positive outlook without a notch is good for the issuer's funding cost, mildly awkward for the book that owns it, and arrives on the agency's schedule, not the credit committee's.
- The Wrap
Mexico's $175 million cat bond may pay on a miss
A near-miss parametric payout will put a price on basis risk just as forecast-based triggers go mainstream.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Resilience pricing runs through triggers, not granular models
Bermuda's $220 billion of disaster exposure gives the Marsh-WEF playbook a specific address, and the report's own data caveat points to parametric cover as the practical route.
- Insurer–manager partnerships
Aon's quota share puts a price on the lead market's work
A 3% catastrophe line and a 5% discount turn the broker's placement book into an investable index, and hand the lead markets a smaller share of the economics they price.
10 stories
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Bermuda's quiet August hides an annuity reinsurance book
Nine Class E licences inside a 46-registration year point to life and annuity risk; the fourth-quarter watch is whether collateralised and special-purpose filings return.
- Insurance regulation
AG 53's review turns to how assets behave under stress
Eighteen months in, the NAIC's valuation reviews are asking how assets behave when assumptions fail, and the answer increasingly runs through the asset manager.
- Insurer portfolios
AI turns growth equity into a manager-selection test
Insurers bought growth equity for buyout-like losses and venture-like upside; AI is deciding which managers keep that bargain.
- Insurance regulation
Bermuda writes the resolution rule its capital recognition depends on
The BMA's consultation names who would run a failure and which insurers fall inside the perimeter, then defers the powers that decide who actually gets paid.
- Insurer portfolios
First Eagle's insurer barbell is a curve view with no ends attached
The $217 billion manager's September note to insurers turns on the slope of the curve, and the public excerpt does not show where the ends sit.
- Insurance Credit
First Eagle's ABL pitch is a manager decision
A head of asset-based loans argues that collateral and control are what a lender is paid for when capital turns conditional.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Mexico's cat bond may pay on a storm that misses
Polo's 892-millibar reading has already cleared the bond's pressure test; the coastal track decides whether $175 million moves from ILS investors to Mexico's treasury.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
California pre-positions for a record El Niño before the first loss
A pre-loss emergency declaration gives reinsurers a named geography and a forecast, with no reported damage yet to price against.
- Insurer–manager partnerships
Axcelus files four separate accounts, and the shelf is the point
The $17.6 million Axcelus booked is the pilot; the matched life-and-annuity chassis is a distribution build aimed at the alternative-asset demand the Bermuda sidecars have been absorbing.
- Insurance Credit
Samsung's China unit keeps its A as the group buys control
The affirmation is continuity on a small China unit. The credit question is how Samsung funds the Canopius control stake.
6 stories
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
AM Best rates Charp Re, and the market still sets the price
A Good rating puts a new name in front of cedents; what it writes at is the number that decides whether this cycle's discipline holds.
- The Wrap
Arcadian puts capacity behind a résumé in casualty
Multiyear capacity committed to a line still being established says more about how sponsor capital is entering insurance than the hire does.
- Insurance regulation
AM Best cuts A-CAP members to C+, negative watch holds
A rating committee has repriced the group while the NAIC's RBC text is still being written, and the intermediaries in between will adjust before either finishes.
- The Wrap
Zurich's Beazley scheme clears court; the $15bn cross-sell starts now
With the legal route clear and the 1 October close set, the entire question of value is whether Zurich can turn a $9bn specialty book into a $15bn one.
- The Wrap
The Pacific's 3.05°C record turns January into a terms fight
Atlantic wind capacity is ample, so cedents will negotiate sublimits rather than price cuts.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
A 3.05°C Pacific record is a January renewal problem
The strongest El Niño on the books arrives as a January terms problem, with Atlantic wind capacity still ample and the argument moving to sublimits.
5 stories
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Swiss Re's $300bn Florida tail dwarfs the cat bond market
A single Miami or Tampa Bay landfall would test Bermuda's reinsurance and ILS capital against a loss the capital markets cannot absorb alone.
- Insurance regulation
The CLO fight is over; the pricing fight is starting
Settled CLO factors clear the NAIC's docket for items that reach every bond, reserve and loan category on the insurance general account.
- Cat bonds & reinsurance
Envelop moves its cyber analytics into casualty
A 30-year treaty veteran from Volante gives the data-first cyber specialist market credibility, but liability is where its underwriting edge has the least room to show.
- The Wrap
TRIA's certainty ends where the hybrid cyber loss begins
A fifth reauthorization converts conventional terrorism into a planning assumption, while Treasury's own hybrid-attack model leaves most of the loss on a trigger the federal program has not finished writing.
- Insurance regulation
TRIA's clean extension is right, and the cyber tail stays open
A near-certain fifth reauthorization gives insurers a terrorism planning assumption they can hold, even as Treasury's own hybrid-attack model puts cyber at 88% of the loss and leaves the trigger unfinished.