December 2014/1

Q: A number of this year's Florida cat bonds used "cascading" structures - but what does this cover provide?

As the shape of today's insurance market continues to morph, tax law has lagged behind in its feeble attempts to force novel concepts into rusty old boxes.

The ILS market has become increasingly open to participating on deals that transfer catastrophe risk from developing countries at a governmental level.

The largest specialist ILS fund managers began foraging for new types of risk in 2014 as they gained more ground in the property cat reinsurance market.

Participants in the life ILS market are hopeful that volumes of XXX and AXXX reserve financing transactions will be boosted in 2015 after regulators made progress on new industry guidelines this year.

In a memorable year for the cat bond market, 2014 brought forth both the largest ever transaction and the lowest coupon deal amid a number of other milestones.

White Mountains reinsurance subsidiary Sirius has decided to close its ILS fund in 2015 as it turns its attention to developing its quota share business with third-party investors, Trading Risk revealed in late November.

The operational expense base of some of the industry's largest reinsurers equates to about 10 percent of their shareholders' equity, analysis of their 2013 annual results shows.

The catastrophe specialists among the peer group of short-tail Bermudian reinsurers tracked by sister publication The Insurance Insider focused on other business lines to deliver top-line premium growth in the third quarter.

RenaissanceRe CEO Kevin O'Donnell said that the company's $1.9bn bid for Platinum Underwriters last month does not represent a strategic shift but merely a furthering of its existing strategy.

Catlin COO Paul Jardine said at a recent Bermuda Convergence conference that the traditional reinsurance model of writing and keeping risk was no longer appropriate and urged the industry to think more about warehousing and distributing risk.

Amlin will pay an estimated $29.1mn (£18.1mn) to acquire another 35 percent share in London-based fund manager Leadenhall Capital Partners, taking its total stake to 75 percent.