Hurricane

A busy period for primary issuance and buoyant demand for cat bonds has fuelled a very active secondary market over the past month, but pricing has finally started to ease back from sustained highs earlier in the year.

Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corporation achieved about a 30 percent reduction in premiums on its traditional reinsurance placement this year, sister publication The Insurance Insider has reported

Allstate has brought its second cat bond to market with the $250mn Sanders Re deal, Trading Risk understands.

Cat bond spreads dropped between 10 and 20 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the previous quarter, Aon Benfield Securities estimated in its quarterly review of the market.

The 1 June renewal of the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA)'s $850mn cat programme remains uncertain, with the very existence of the residual insurer under considerable threat.

Cat bond issuance has picked up pace to boost first quarter issuance to $1.35bn, just behind last year's record-breaking $1.5bn

Swiss Re now ranks 2011 ahead of 2005 as the costliest catastrophe year ever for insurers, according to the reinsurer's latest Sigma report.

Swiss Re has recouped $7.2mn of Hurricane Sandy losses from its Vega Capital 2010 cat bond in the second investor payout on the three-year deal, according to a Moody's rating note.

Another long-range forecast has predicted an active hurricane season in 2013 due to the unusually warm temperatures in the tropical Atlantic over the last several months

Cat bond investors have been warned to prepare for an active hurricane season, according to a brace of updated forecasts.

The ILS market is offering its lowest reinsurance pricing on peak perils since 1992's Hurricane Andrew, said Aon Benfield in its report on the April renewals

Superstorm Sandy cost insurers roughly $20bn-$25bn and helped make 2012 the third-worst year for insured catastrophe losses, according to the latest Sigma report from Swiss Re.