Hurricane

Florida managing general agency New Paradigm Group has expanded its parametric product offering to target (re)insurers as well as ultimate buyers.

Hurricane Patricia has strengthened at an "incredible rate" in the past 12 hours to become a Category 5 storm as it heads towards Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest report.

Investors in the MultiCat Mexico cat bond will be watching the progress of Hurricane Patricia as it heads towards landfall on Friday afternoon or evening (23 October).

Modelling firm RMS has acquired HWind Scientific, a data service that the company said would enhance its ability to deliver real-time and post-landfall analysis of North Atlantic hurricanes to its clients.

Hurricane Joaquin has strengthened to become a major category 4 hurricane, as the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said strong winds from the storm would cause minor to moderate coastal flooding in parts of the US regardless of the storm's ultimate track.

Karen Clarke and Company (KCC) has updated its RiskInsight open loss modelling platform (RI4) to allow users to build their own hurricane and earthquake models.

Politicians from the Philippines and Mexico have said they are near the point of launching new cat bonds, according to local media reports.

The 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has prompted a number of modelling firms to focus on US storm surge risk, with RMS and Karen Clark & Company (KCC) both releasing studies on the most vulnerable US cities.

AIR Worldwide has completely revamped the way it models storm surge losses in the latest major update of its US Atlantic hurricane models.

ILS spreads began their seasonal tightening relatively late into the hurricane season this year, with widening persisting into May and June.

Swiss Re is working with the City of New Orleans to help it investigate ways of transferring cat risk to the private market.

Reinsurers reduced their exposure to catastrophe perils in 2015, but are holding onto US hurricane risk and increasing their use of retrocession, according to a Standard & Poor's study released today (2 September)