Trading Risk December 2017

Leadenhall Capital Partners has hired Hamza Khan and Paul Haig to join its business development team.

The NZ Super Fund has appointed Del Hart as head of external investments and partnerships, replacing Fiona Mackenzie.

A number of ILS managers stand to benefit from so-called "window" industry loss warranty (ILW) covers, which means that their recoveries may rely on limited loss deterioration.

Megan McConnell will step down as active underwriter of Paraline's Lloyd's Syndicate 4242 in March. She was also involved in the syndicate's reinsurance purchasing strategy.

Is the combination of the Harvey, Irma and Maria (HIM) hurricanes a once-in-a-career event for reinsurance underwriters or likely to happen more often?

This year has set a new record for cat bond issuances, with volumes topping $10bn - and the trend is expected to continue into 2018, Trading Risk sources have said

Solvency II continued to drive life deals in 2017 after the EU capital regime came into force last year, while the market dislocation seen in 2016 following an increase in mortality rates finally abated, sources said.

The ILS sector continued to see new launches in 2017, as the fallout from hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria gave momentum to a number of niche start-ups.

Industry analysts have estimated that the ILS market could pick up as much as 15-25 percent of total insured claims from this year's major disaster losses, but looking at disclosures to date suggests the sector is currently assuming its share will fall at the lower end of expectations

Smart beta products seem to be the flavour of the month

This year began with a flurry of cat bond transactions while existing sponsors took advantage of the soft market and expanded their coverage, as 2017 set a new record for cat bond issuance.

Retro market sources said that capacity shortages would not be a factor in the January renewals after ILS managers reloaded lost capital, but that uncertainty over underlying reinsurance repricing was contributing to a stand-off