December 2015/1

Leadenhall Capital Partners has hired former Markel International analyst Joel Milnes and Swiss Re life insurance actuary Craig Gillespie

The decade-long major US hurricane landfall "drought" since Hurricane Wilma struck in 2005 has been highlighted by the meteorological community, catastrophe modellers and the insurance sector alike as extraordinarily rare

For any ILS transaction, the structure of the trigger mechanism is critical to determining whether a sponsor receives a loss payment following a catastrophe event, thereby causing a loss to investors

Support for several innovative reinsurance projects emerged to coincide with this month's COP21 Paris Climate Conference.

A change in US reserving rules kicked off the year in the life sector, causing a crunch in the number of reserve financing and embedded value (EV) financing deals, according to Milliman

The Lloyd's Franchise Board has given final approval for Credit Suisse and Securis to set up new vehicles in the London market from 1 January 2016.

As reinsurers push further into the insurance market, debate is re-igniting over whether this strategy will cause conflict with their existing primary counterparties.

ILS investors are questioning whether American International Group (AIG) will remain as active in the cat bond market as it has been in recent years, after the insurer parted ways with its head of insurance capital markets Samir Shah.

The ILS funds market caught the M&A fever seen across the traditional reinsurance sector this year as its rate of growth significantly slowed

Leadenhall Capital Partners won a $20mn mandate from a US state university pension fund in early November, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) pension fund lifted its investment with a Nephila Capital fund by 25 percent year-on-year in the financial year ending 31 March 2015.

Nephila Capital is targeting the Florida Citizens depopulation programme as a new source of business for its expansion into the primary insurance market.