Hurricane

Universal Insurance Holdings reduced its estimated gross loss for Hurricane Irma to $447mn in the fourth quarter down from $452mn at the close of Q3.

Is catastrophe risk as exotic as the reinsurance industry thinks it is?

MS Amlin took 77.8bn yen ($724mn) of losses from last year's hurricanes and Californian wildfires, with 24.9bn yen ($232mn) of these losses coming through in the fourth quarter due to the Californian wildfires.

PCS has largely reversed an earlier cut to its loss forecast for Hurricane Irma, estimating the insured damage at $17.2bn, sister publication The Insurance Insider reported.

The cumulative insured loss number from PCS for 2017 hurricane and wildfire claims now stands at $68bn, with all cat perils in the US totalling $88bn.

Losses from US primary habitational and coastal hotel accounts have driven pockets of localised hardening in the US commercial property insurance market, with rate increases of as much as 70 percent for some risks.

The 2017 calendar year was the costliest on record for weather events, with insured losses estimated at $132bn, according to Aon Benfield's Impact Forecasting.

The Blue Capital Alternative Income Fund is expected to deliver returns of 8-13 percent in 2018, up by roughly a third compared to the 6-10 percent expected return from its 2017 portfolio, the ILS manager announced.

Markel Catco has set the maximum net return on the Catco Reinsurance Opportunities Fund's 2018 portfolio at 23 percent, according to a London Stock Exchange note.

Aon Benfield has forecast that continued momentum from 2017's record-breaking cat bond issuance will push this year's total to $8bn-$9bn.

S&P Global Ratings has forecast that there will be double-digit rate increases in Puerto Rico and Florida this year, following last year's hurricanes.

Aon Benfield's estimate of insured losses from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria (HIM) has come in at $80bn, below the $92bn-$93bn forecasts from Munich Re and Swiss Re released several weeks ago