Trading Risk March 2018

Nephila Capital is planning to replace Asta Managing Agency with its own personnel to run its Lloyd's Syndicate 2357 in house subject to regulatory approval, according to Trading Risk sources.

RMS has appointed fintech veteran Karen White as its new head, replacing co-founder and CEO Hemant Shah, who has left the company.

Aon Benfield has appointed Eric Paire to head its new capital advisory unit, which will offer structured and alternative risk solutions among other services.

Florida MGA New Paradigm Underwriters has hired broking veteran Evan Bull as executive vice president.

Securis Investment Partners has hired Simon Arnott as head of origination for Bermuda and the US, based in Bermuda.

Markel has named Guy Carpenter's Julia Chu as its new chief global ceded reinsurance officer.

Langhorne Holdings has appointed Craig Fowler as CEO of Langhorne Reinsurance (Bermuda), the company's Bermuda underwriting platform.

JLT Re has appointed Ariel Hernandez as senior vice president based in Miami.

Pension risk transfer solutions provider Hymans Robertson has named Michael Abramson as a partner and risk transfer specialist based in London.

Ben Fox has joined Hiscox Re's ILS investment team as portfolio manager.

Opportunities abound for investors willing to embrace the resilience gap, according to RMS global managing director Daniel Stander

Florida insurers are running up high costs of settling claims linked to Hurricane Irma, as loss adjustment expense levels reach roughly 20 percent or more of total claims, sources have told Trading Risk.

If ILS capital is designed to be the ultimate home for catastrophe risk, how far should asset managers look to hedge their investors' bets?

The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund has more than halved its estimate of losses from Hurricane Irma to $2.04bn from $5bn.

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association will reset its Alamo Re 2017 cat bond to trigger at a lower level after its Hurricane Harvey losses wiped out the association's funds.

M&A to rejig primary/wholesale balance; ILS blueprints for global transfer multiply

Two government-backed insurance schemes on either side of the Atlantic are considering new ILS purchases as they seek to diversify their reinsurance panels.

A lack of fronting capacity and licensed insurance paper is one of the major challenges facing the InsurTech industry, a panel of speakers agreed at the Sifma IRLS conference in Miami this month.

Leading InsurTechs Metromile and Lemonade have reported rising losses, with rapidly increasing net premiums earned not enough to prevent underwriting losses from surging, research from two industry veterans has shown.

Commercial flood is set to be one of the first lines of business InsurTech start-up Extraordinary Re targets when it launches this summer.

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas held $300mn in ILS as of 31 August 2017, which represented 0.21 percent of its total portfolio, the pension fund confirmed.

Twelve Capital is exposed to the liquidation of Danish motor insurer Alpha Insurance via a EUR20mn ($24.8mn) private debt transaction issued in 2014.

A 20 percent increase in industry loss estimates for last year's hurricanes and wildfires could see 2017 returns for Markel Catco's London-listed Reinsurance Opportunities Fund drop by a further 8 percent, the retro manager has disclosed.

The Resilience Re platform run by Willis Towers Watson Securities issued two deals amounting to $112.6mn in March.