Alterra Capital will take a $60-100mn net loss on the 11 March Japanese earthquake and it may also see an investment loss of up to $25mn on a cat bond it owns that is exposed to the event.
Alterra's loss estimate equates to a 2.1 - 3.4 percent of 2011 opening equity.
Its first quarter loss toll, at the mid-range of its forecasts, has reached $112mn or 3.84 percent of equity including previously announced losses from Australian and New Zealand catastrophes.
Alterra recently teamed with private equity firm Stone Point Capital to commit up to $200mn to the first post-Japan property catastrophe sidecar.
New Point IV is the successor to a series of fully collateralised vehicles formed by Harbor Point, which merged with Max Capital last year to form Alterra.
The previous sidecar, New Point III, launched last year to offer capacity for aggregate limits up to $100mn, focussing on property catastrophe retro contracts for both ultimate net loss (UNL) and industry loss warranties (ILW) cover.
The ramped up 2011 version has a broader remit to provide additional capacity across the property catastrophe collateralised reinsurance marketplace in response to the impact of the spate of global international catastrophic losses hitting the sector.
The copy above has been amended to reflect new information from Alterra. Although the company's original press statement noted that its investment losses would depend on ultimate insured loss levels from Japanese events, the firm later said the cat bond it owned was parametric-based.