Hurricane

As Hurricane Irene bears down on the East coast of the US, brokers have transacted livecat industry loss warranty

Irene, the first hurricane of the 2011 US wind season, has prompted trading of two issues of the Johnston Re North Carolina state wind pool cat bond notes, Trading Risk understands.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's says third quarter issuance from the insurance-linked security (ILS) market are on track to beat historical norms for the period, signalling a potential change to the normal sales cycle.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has lowered its ratings on five hurricane bonds still on review after the RMS model upgrade.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgraded six cat bond tranches, totalling $470mn of capacity, in light of higher attachment probabilities under RMS's new Version 11.0 US hurricane model.

Three new bonds are expected to come to market in July, bringing much-needed diversification to the ILS sector and ending a lean period for new issuance.

Despite opening the year with "optimism and swagger," the cat bond market was cut down to size by the new RMS hurricane model in Q2 as new issuance was stalled by pricing uncertainty, according to broker Willis.

Ratings agency AM Best has downgraded $175mn of Flagstone Re's Montana Re 2009 US wind and quake cat bond, in light of higher attachment probabilities under RMS's new Version 11.0 US hurricane model.

Three new bonds are expected to come to market in July, bringing much-need diversification to the ILS sector and ending a lean period for new ILS issuance.

Risk modeller RMS released its latest Europe windstorm model today (12 July), introducing three new countries to the model and increasing risk profiles in most regions.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) has downgraded six of the cat bond issues it had put on CreditWatch negative in order to assess the impact on attachment probability of the new version 11.0 of Risk Management Solutions' US hurricane model.

In a similar reaction to that of the traditional markets at the busy June and July renewal season, the impact of the model changes in the convergence sector appears to have been muted.