2008 Catastrophe Update: A record-setting Atlantic hurricane season and above-average manmade catastrophe losses put 2008 among the costliest years on record. While the economic downturn dominated the headlines throughout the year, lurking in the shadows was one of the most active hurricane seasons on record.

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Reinsurance Pricing and the Changing Cost of Capital: Despite the ambiguity pervading financial and reinsurance markets, it is clear that systemic risk has increased.

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Accounting and Accountability: Fair Value and Convergence: Fair value accounting - also known as “mark-to-market” - has appeared in the headlines quite frequently, largely because of the ongoing financial catastrophe.

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Price Bottoms Out for Aviation: The aviation renewal came without surprises and generally without change. After years of cedent-advantaged market conditions, pricing stabilized. Terms and conditions showed little (if any) change, and quoting was timely and disciplined.

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Book Value Update, Dec 29, 2008: Book values are unchanged from last week. The S&P 500 Banks Index implied book value continues to show a 32 percent aggregate decline from December 31, 2007.

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Most Popular Keyword: (Guy Carpenter) World ROL Index

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GC Capital Tip: Register for 1/1 Renewal Updates: The January 1, 2009 renewal is approaching rapidly. Register now for e-mail updates from GC Capital Ideas to have the latest intelligence delivered directly to your inbox.

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Reinsurance Pricing and the Changing Cost of Capital: Despite the ambiguity pervading financial and reinsurance markets, it is clear that systemic risk has increased. Unprecedented chaos in financial markets left investors more risk-averse than they were at the end of the summer.

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Price Bottoms Out for Aviation: The aviation renewal came without surprises and generally without change. After years of cedent-advantaged market conditions, pricing stabilized. Terms and conditions showed little (if any) change, and quoting was timely and disciplined.

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Financial Catastrophe Hits Japan, Net Income Off 67 Percent: A sagging economy has pushed non-life insurer earnings lower in Japan. After-tax net income for the seven largest companies dropped 67.1 percent for the first half of fiscal year 2008 (April 1, 2008 to September 30, 2008) relative to the same period in 2007-after adjustments for contingency reserve movements.

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The Adverse Development Super-Catastrophe: Property catastrophes make the news. Tangible and visual, the carnage can be conveyed with ease, and all can grasp the direct implications immediately.

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Book Value Update, Dec 22, 2008: Book values remained stable last week. The S&P 500 Banks Index implied book value has increased by three percentage points since the end of November, reflecting a 32 percent aggregate decline from December 31, 2007. The Guy Carpenter Global Composite regained some momentum, edging slightly higher from the previous week.

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Most Popular Keyword: World ROL Index

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Climate Change: A Debate Reshapes (Re)Insurance: The climate change debate is likely to continue unabated well into the future. Even if it is not settled anytime soon, the debate itself has already begun to affect the (re)insurance industry. Risk-bearers deal in probability routinely, making climate change another likelihood to consider.

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Climate Change: A Debate Reshapes (Re)insurance: The climate change debate is likely to continue unabated well into the future. Even if it is not settled anytime soon, the debate itself has already begun to affect the (re)insurance industry.

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Reinsurance Pricing and the Changing Cost of Capital: Despite the ambiguity pervading financial and reinsurance markets, it is clear that systemic risk has increased. Unprecedented chaos in financial markets left investors more risk-averse than they were at the end of the summer.

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The Adverse Development Super-Catastrophe: Property catastrophes make the news. Tangible and visual, the carnage can be conveyed with ease, and all can grasp the direct implications immediately.

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A Most Unusual Renewal: The imminent renewal is likely to be the most unusual in recent memory. The (re)insurance industry remains entangled in a global financial catastrophe, which makes any effort at forecasting the exact outcome very difficult.

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Financial Catastrophe Hits Japan, Net Income Off 67 Percent: A sagging economy has pushed non-life insurer earnings lower in Japan. After-tax net income for the seven largest companies dropped 67.1 percent for the first half of fiscal year 2008 (April 1, 2008 to September 30, 2008) relative to the same period in 2007-after adjustments for contingency reserve movements.

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Most Popular Keyword: nat cat (natural catastrophe)

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Book Value Update, Dec 15, 2008: Book values ticked higher last week, as both the Guy Carpenter Global Composite and the S&P Banks Index showed signs of renewed hope. Gains were slight, but they emphasize the trend toward stability.

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A Most Unusual Renewal: The imminent renewal is likely to be the most unusual in recent memory. The (re)insurance industry remains entangled in a global financial catastrophe, which makes any effort at forecasting the exact outcome very difficult.

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Book Value Update, Dec 8, 2008: The Guy Carpenter Global Composite’s aggregate book value unchanged from last week. The measure is still down 18 percent for the year.

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Reinsurance Pricing and the Changing Cost of Capital: Despite the ambiguity pervading financial and reinsurance markets, it is clear that systemic risk has increased. Unprecedented chaos in financial markets left investors more risk-averse than they were at the end of the summer.

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Turkey: Catastrophe Reinsurance Market 2008: Turkish reinsurance pricing increased substantially in the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake, although most reinsurers saw paybacks of their losses within two years.

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Chart Update: GC Reinsurance Composite: Earning Sources at Nine Months: As third quarter results become available, Guy Carpenter will continue to update the GC Reinsurance Composite Earnings Sources chart.

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Most Popular Keyword: world cat (World Catastrophe Country Reports)

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The Adverse Development Super-Catastrophe: Property catastrophes make the news. Tangible and visual, the carnage can be conveyed with ease, and all can grasp the direct implications immediately. Yet for (re)insurers, there’s another type of catastrophe that could be far more destructive to balance sheets.

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Climate Change: A Debate Reshapes (Re)Insurance: The climate change debate is likely to continue unabated well into the future. Even if it is not settled anytime soon, the debate itself has already begun to affect the (re)insurance industry.

Read the article >>

Reinsurance Pricing and the Changing Cost of Capital: Despite the ambiguity pervading financial and reinsurance markets, it is clear that systemic risk has increased.

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Swap Out Risk?: far-reaching effects of the ongoing global financial catastrophe have led investors and catastrophe bond sponsors to question the status quo.

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Book Value Update, Dec 1, 2008: The Guy Carpenter Global Composite’s aggregate book value is down 18 percent for the year, relatively unchanged over the past week.

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Reinsurer Diversification: The Guy Carpenter Model: Instrat®, Guy Carpenter’s quantitative services unit, has developed a reinsurer credit model. It allows an analyst to input a mixture of reinsurers and measure the impact of the diversification effect.

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Most Popular Keyword: catastrophe bonds

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Czech Republic: Catastrophe Reinsurance Market 2008: The Czech Republic has sufficient excess of loss catastrophe capacity available. Competition was quite strong during the renewal, although the reinsurance market remained harder than had been expected originally.

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Reinsurer Diversification: The Guy Carpenter Model: Instrat®, Guy Carpenter’s quantitative services unit, has developed a reinsurer credit model.

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Swap Out Risk?: The far-reaching effects of the ongoing global financial catastrophe have led investors and catastrophe bond sponsors to question the status quo.

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Book Value Update, Nov 24, 2008: The Guy Carpenter Global Composite’s combined book value is down 18 percent from the beginning of the year, reflecting the continued pressure that carriers face as third quarter results are released.

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Chart Update: Post-Tax Hurricane Exposures: As third quarter results become available, Guy Carpenter will continue to update the Post-Tax Hurricane Exposures chart.

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FHCF Bonding Capacity Update: The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (FHCF) has announced changes in bonding capacity.

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Most Popular Keyword: reinsurance composite (Guy Carpenter Global Composite)

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Reinsurer Diversification: Case Studies: A hypothetical ceding company contracts for the USD200 million casualty cover from a single Aaa rated reinsurer.

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Reinsurer Diversification: The Guy Carpenter Model: Instrat®, Guy Carpenter’s quantitative services unit, has developed a reinsurer credit model.

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Reinsurer Diversification: Roots and Benefits: Cedents are becoming increasingly concerned about the security of their reinsurers, particularly in light of the global financial catastrophe.

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Chart: GC Reinsurance Composite: Earning Sources at Nine Months: With the majority of Guy Carpenter Reinsurance Composite members’ third quarter results now reported, some clear trends have emerged.

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Get Credit for Your ECM with S&P: S&P has released a new framework for determining whether a carrier’s own ECM can receive partial credit in the S&P capital adequacy evaluation.

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Book Value Update, Nov 17, 2008: As publicly traded (re)insurers continue to report their third quarter results, the impact of the ongoing financial catastrophe is becoming more noticeable.

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Most Popular Keyword: asset impairment

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2008 Reinsurance Readers’ Awards: Your vote counts. Click here to participate in the 2008 Reinsurance magazine Readers’ Awards survey.

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Book Value Update: Earnings Announcement Impact: the erosion of balance sheets continues, as the effects of a global financial catastrophe spread across financial markets.

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Get Credit for Your ECM with S&P: Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has released a new framework for determining whether a carrier’s own ECM can receive partial credit in the S&P capital adequacy evaluation.

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Financial Catastrophes: No Storm, Plenty of Damage: throughout 2008, every major city in the world felt the reverberations of a “financial catastrophe,” triggered by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

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Uncover and Mitigate Product Liability Risk: Avert a Casuaty Catastrophe: Casualty Cat, a new model developed jointly by Guy Carpenter and Arium, Ltd., seeks to identify the hidden product liability accumulations in a carrier’s portfolio and delivers the insights needed for informed action.

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Defining the Value of Risk Management: the fundamental activity of risk-bearers has not been measurable, leaving a cloud of ambiguity in the middle of every carrier’s operation.

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Most Popular Keyword: asset impairment

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Alternatives to Alternative Capital: (re)insurers have come to expect that alternative sources of capital will always be available, but the well may be at risk of running dry.

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Carrier Capital Softens the Financial Blow: the market is experiencing a fundamental tension of factors right now.

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Under Pressure But Standing Strong: the financial catastrophe that has taken hold of global financial markets has caused much consternation for (re)insurers.

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ERM: Part of The Answer to The Financial Catastrophes: while hurricanes spun through the Gulf of Mexico last month, a larger catastrophe ripped through New York, London, Shanghai, and every other major financial center in the world.

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MetaRisk® Co-TVaR Report Advantages: the co-TVaR report in MetaRisk gives analysts easy access to valuable information to illumniate the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and capital implicaitons of reinsurance.

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Cat Risk Comes Out of Hiding: advances in casualty catastrophe modeling may help protect you from “hidden” portfolio exposures.

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Most Popular Keyword: asset impairment

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Book Value Update: A Week of Stability: over the past week, changes in the weighted average book value of the S&P 500 Insurance and Banks Indices have stabilized for companies in the broad financial services industry.

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Carrier Capital Softens the Financial Blow: the market is experiencing a fundamental tension of factors right now.

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Cat Risk Comes Out of Hiding: advances in casualty catastrophe modeling may help protect you from “hidden” portfolio exposures.

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Uncover and Mitigate Product Liability Risk: avert a Casualty Catastrophe: few grasp the full extent of product liability insurance exposure.

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ERM: Part of the Answer to Financial Catastrophes: while hurricanes spun through the Gulf of Mexico last month, a larger catastrophe ripped through New York, London, Shanghai, and every other major financial center in the world.

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Models Rise to Flooding Challenge: most models have not been able to address the complexity of this peril, rendering targeted risk management impossible.

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Most Popular Keyword: casualty cat (i.e., casualty catastrophe)

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Multi-Year Cover Gaining Steam in LA&H: the use of multi-year cover for accident and health lines of business, though in its infancy, could be the next step in mitigating risk and reducing ambiguity.

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