Hannover Re

A cat-focused vehicle is “the missing piece” of Hannover Re’s ILS offerings, said Silke Sehm.

The reinsurer’s capacity is hugely important to ILS firms, with few alternative providers.

Aaron Garcia will hold a senior role at the operation, sources have confirmed.

The reinsurer plans to repeat its 2025 purchasing for property and specialty protections.

The firm booked net losses from the LA wildfires of EUR615.1mn in the first half.

The deals covered Euro wind and Italy quake, Florida hurricane and a retro bond.

The bond will provide named storm and quake coverage in the US.

Wildfire losses from fronting and ILS activities were EUR438mn.

The bond will offer retrocession coverage for Hannover Re.

The catastrophe bond comes after the issuance of a Mayflower Re bond last year.

This is the first time the Texas Fair Plan has entered the cat bond market.

The deal is 45% larger than 2024’s issuance after attracting a “greater number of investors”.

Sources warned some property XoL books are already running 50% loss ratios.

The reinsurer had taken the opportunity to buy more limit across event and aggregate covers.

The largest individual net loss at EUR230mn was caused by Hurricane Milton.

The carrier is likely to exceed its Q1 large-loss budget due to the California wildfires.

The reinsurer has cut the cession rate to 33% from 40% last year.

The reinsurer is seeking index-based cover for a wide scope of perils and territories.

The reinsurer confirmed its intention to reduce the K-Cession sidecar for 2025.

The outgoing CEO will leave the company at the end of March 2025.

The reinsurer is planning to drop its cession rate from 40% to 30%-35%.

The losses were not passed through to the firm’s ILS business.

Hannover Re's cyber bond pays on a parametric basis for each hour after an agreed waiting period.

The event could unpack issues around accumulation risk and cloud services.

The bond’s pricing for southern US storms landed at the upper bound of guidance.

Cat bond deals placed last week amounted to $150mn of issuance.

The bond has priced at the mid-point of guidance.

The reinsurer narrowed the scope of perils in its latest issuance versus its 3264 2022 cat bond.

The carrier experienced a benign Q1 for catastrophic loss activity.

Large losses came to EUR52mn with low retro recoveries.

The reinsurer said it hopes to grow the size of the $13.75mn deal over time.

Stefan Sperlich will lead the new unit as managing director.

The reinsurer’s large losses were down 5% to EUR1.6bn for the year.

The issuer is seeking aggregate and per occurrence coverage.

The reinsurer said retro pricing had ‘moved slightly in our favour’ at 1 January.

The carrier faced "significant impact" from a P&C reserve charge on its earnings.

The Seaside Re placement is the first cat bond lite deal of 2024.

In total nearly $139mn worth of bonds have been extended.

The firm said it would cut its K-cession ‘significantly below 2023 levels’ and buy ‘broadly similar towers of non-proportional retro’ at 1 January.

The carrier also laid out its financial strategy through to 2026 in an investor-day disclosure.

The cost of maintaining a team to service institutional investors does not always weigh favourably versus bringing in ILS capital.

The Class A notes priced at the midpoint of guidance and the Class B notes at the top end.

The insurer previously sought $250mn of coverage for any named storm event in North Carolina.

Hannover Re said it was in discussions with retro partners about buying less in 2024.

The group’s ceded large losses reached 17% of gross losses, up from 11% a year ago.

Hannover Re’s Bermuda-based reinsurance transformer Kaith Re has issued a new $15mn private cat bond, a Bermuda Stock Exchange filing confirms.

CEO Jean-Jacques Henchoz said it was “difficult to find a positive trend” in the global risk outlook.

The reinsurer’s large loss cession ratio was 17%, up from 12% in H1 2022.

The carrier’s largest loss in H1 arose from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, resulting in a EUR257mn charge.

The bond will provide cover for US named storm and earthquake events in all 50 US states.

The bond will provide coverage for US named storms and earthquakes.

The bond is seeking earthquake coverage in California on an indemnity, annual aggregate basis.

Net large losses included impacts from the New Zealand flooding, the Turkey earthquake and cyclone Gabrielle.

The executive leads a fronting reinsurer which has been a major enabler of ILS market growth.

The reinsurer retained EUR321.9mn of Hurricane Ian losses on its own book.

The large-loss impact to the P&C Re combined ratio rose 0.4 percentage points to 7.9% for the full year compared with 2021.

The P&C Re segment recorded large losses above expectations for the sixth consecutive year in 2022.

The carrier has increased its retro capacity by 56% to EUR1.34bn.

The reinsurer’s overall retro programme increased by 56% as its whole-account and cat swaps also grew.

The carrier said it achieved average risk-adjusted price increases of 30% on cat business.

The carrier said GWP was up 12.7% to EUR33.3bn.

The transaction is the first proportional deal for cyber risk in the capital markets.  

The bonds replace last year’s issuance and are bigger by 35%.

Cedants are grappling with rising rates while coverage narrows.

Inigo earlier trimmed the bond’s scope of perils to exclude Japan typhoon and quake.

Hannover Re said that it expected its total gross Ian losses to be slightly below EUR400mn.

The carrier also offered assurances on the strength of its reserving to combat inflation.

The combined ratio for Hannover Re’s structured reinsurance and ILS fronting business came in just better than target at 98.2%.

The firm said inflation and modelling changes had driven the need for bigger limits.

Winter storms in the first half of 2022 are expected to result in claims totalling EUR1.4bn.

The reinsurer’s executives forecast further price increases and improvements in conditions across the board for 1.1 treaty renewals.

The reinsurer has placed layers of its mortality risk into the capital markets since 2013.

The reinsurer so far has made no claims on its retro protections for war-related impacts.

Major losses added 5.4 points to the combined ratio.

Sharon Ooi joins Swiss Re’s executive board and will be based largely in Hong Kong.

The segment’s lustre has been dulled by losses and capital trapping.

The issuance will be fronted by Hannover Re with an initial attachment level of $2.2bn.

The reinsurer revealed its Ukraine loss charge excludes aviation.

The reinsurer said Q1 large loss events included Oz floods, European storms and a sunken ship.

It noted that its aviation and marine books are covered by retro although its exposure is “not very material”.

The reinsurer exceeded its large-loss budget by $166mn.

The reinsurer said it was anticipating increased volume for catastrophe bonds and collateralised reinsurance this year.

Scor’s renewals update denotes a continued push to control volatility while Hannover Re is focused on growth.

The carrier’s whole-account XoL retro also shrank by a similar margin.

The carrier expanded premium by 8.3% at the January renewal.

The move comes amid limited availability of annual aggregate cover.

The target spread has gone up 4% on the high-risk aggregate deal.

The catastrophe bond will take the firm’s cover to $250mn.

HannoverRe said that EUR180mn of its EUR221.6mn ceded Ida losses stemmed from ILS businesses that Hannover Re fronts.

Hannover Re has ceded more than twice the level of large catastrophe losses to reinsurance and retro partners in the first nine months of 2021 as it did in 2020, as it retained only around a third of its Bernd flood claims on a net basis.

The executive said “every reinsurance buyer” underestimated the impact of the flooding.

The reinsurer aims to become carbon-neutral in operations by 2030, whilst its reinsurance target date is 2050.

In its renewal season update, the carrier said Bernd, Ida, Uri and the pandemic would force up pricing across lines and regions.

The carrier could not yet discern whether Q3 flooding losses will hit the $2.4bn programme, however.

Executive board chairman Jean-Jacques Henchoz said earnings for H1 were up to pre-pandemic levels.

The deal will be fronted by Hannover Re but will provide coverage to the state backed carrier.

The reinsurer recovered 24% of its gross major losses from retro partners.

The carrier last year said its K sidecar would pick up Covid claims over time.

The carrier also said the Texas Big Freeze will be a "high double-digit million" loss.

The reinsurer’s ceded major losses were down 2% year-on-year, despite its net retained cat losses spiking by two-thirds to EUR1.6bn.

Hannover Re and Fidelis provided significant capacity on the Munich Re-led programme.

Across its three core retro deals, the carrier renewed EUR1.17bn, down 3% from EUR1.21bn in 2020.

The fourth-quarter charge will take group full-year pandemic losses to EUR1.2bn.

The latest issuances take the 2021 Seaside Re bonds to $136mn in total, down 10% from last year.

The new limit amounts to roughly half the Seaside Re bonds placed last year.

Suncorp, IAG and QBE reinsurers could face significant recoveries after a landmark court ruling.

The carrier increases its appetite for catastrophe risk ahead of “substantial” rate increases at 1 January.

The reinsurer passed lower natural catastrophe losses to retro partners than in Q3 2019, but Covid ceded losses rose to EUR173mn.

The carrier says higher retro renewal costs will act as a counterweight to rising rates.

Hannover Re's K sidecar includes exposure to the aviation market, but overall ILS participation in such risks is limited.

The reinsurers point to falling interest rates and loss experience as the basis for further hardening.

Lower capacity will have an effect, but the company hopes to avoid severe retro rate rises.

CEO Michael Pickel says Covid-19-related losses and the low interest rate environment have made price increases “absolutely essential”.

The carrier participates in payout schemes to policyholders despite doubts over coverage.

The company acts as reinsurer and shares the risk with the Natural Disaster Fund.

The retro vehicle has only picked up a small share so far but this will grow.

The P&C business posted a EUR167.9mn underwriting deficit on EUR380mn in Covid-19-related losses.

The carrier took a separate EUR220mn charge connected to Covid-19 losses.

The firm said it expected its solvency ratio to be comfortably above its requirements.

The firm's K sidecar avoided major Dorian claims, as the firm also grew its whole-account covers.

This came as major losses ceded to retro partners reached EUR541mn.

As per previous bonds, the transaction is fronted by Hannover Re.

The deal's spreads are in line with those on the 2019 FloodSmart deal, with slightly higher multiples of premium to risk.

The firm's cat excess-of-loss book rose 7.8 percent.

The pricing targets imply a minor uplift in the premium multiples on offer.

Pricing dropped 6 percent from the midpoint of the initial range to reach 9.75 percent.

Pricing on the ILW bond has dropped below the initial guidance range.

Hannover Re issued seven Seaside Re cat bond lites totalling $74.5mn yesterday, following $77mn of notes at the end of 2019.

The reinsurer is thought to be buying the ILW protection for its own account, sources said.

This latest deal takes 2019 cat bond lite issuance to $749.5mn, below the $973.7mn total recorded last year.

Hannover Re committed EUR50mn to the fund, which targets risk transfer in developing markets.

The reinsurer reported a gross loss of EUR207.7mn ($230.2mn) for Dorian and EUR167.2mn for Faxai.

CFO Vogel says he sees no further net impact from the Japanese event after first-half loss creep.

The carrier took a EUR58mn hit in Q2 from Jebi, putting its retro covers on point to trigger.

The bond will attach at $2.1bn, sitting alongside previous issuances in the series.

The reinsurer lifted its P&C reinsurance top line by 23 percent in Q1.

Both tranches of Fema’s $300mn FloodSmart Re cat bond have priced at the upper end of the initial guidance.

The deal would be the US agency’s second.

The carrier also reported a 12.2 percent increase in gross written premium in structured reinsurance and ILS activities, which reached EUR2.93bn.

The new executive board member has been with the business since 1996.

The bond’s spread was confirmed at 4.25 percent, at the top end of estimates.

The target coupon on the deal has moved to the upper end of forecasts.

The reinsurer said it had had to pay an increase on its loss-hit aggregate retro cover.

A large reinsurer is looking at launching an ILS fronting business to fill the gap left by the pending departure from the space of Tokio Millennium Re.