Best of Artemis, week ending January 5th 2025

Here are the ten most popular news articles, week ending January 5th 2025, covering catastrophe bonds, ILS, reinsurance capital and related risk transfer topics. To ensure you never miss a thing subscribe to the weekly Artemis email newsletter updates or get our email alerts for every article we publish.

1. Stone Ridge’s flagship ILS fund returns 92% in two years, casualty reinsurer Longtail Re outperforms
   Stone Ridge Asset Management, the New York based alternative risk premia focused investment manager, had another strong year for its reinsurance investment strategies and ventures in 2024, which CEO Ross Stevens describes in his latest investor letter while also explaining some of what makes the firm so interesting.
2. Swiss Re cat bond Index delivers 17.29% total-return in 2024, second-highest ever
   The catastrophe bond market delivered the second-highest total-return in its history in 2024, reaching 17.29% for the full-year, according to data from the Swiss Re Cat Bond Performance Indices.
3. Property cat pricing declines 8%, retrocession falls 13.5% at January renewal: Howden
   At the January 2025 reinsurance renewals broking group Howden estimates that risk-adjusted pricing for property catastrophe treaty business declined by 8%, while retrocession pricing fell further by 13.5%.
4. Record cat bond issuance of $17.7bn in 2024 takes outstanding market near $50bn: Report
   Catastrophe bond and related insurance-linked securities (ILS) market issuance of $4.5 billion in the fourth-quarter was sufficient to take the full-year 2024 total to a record $17.7 billion, while the outstanding market reached a new all-time-high of $49.5 billion, Artemis’ new quarterly cat bond market report shows.
5. Excess capacity drives loss-free property cat rates down 5% to 15% at renewal: Guy Carpenter
   Strong appetites from traditional reinsurance and alternative capital providers have resulted in excess capacity that has served to drive loss-free property catastrophe rates down between 5% and 15% at the January 1st 2025 renewals, according to Guy Carpenter.
6. Munich Re starts Eden Re II 2025 sidecar with $64.5m Class A notes, largest since 2019
   Munich Re has been back in the capital markets to secure quota share based retrocession and to start the 2025 sidecar arrangement for the reinsurer, its Eden Re II Ltd. collateralized reinsurance vehicle has issued $64.5 million of Series 2025-1 Class A notes, which is the largest Class A tranche from the structure since 2019.
7. Easing of retro market conditions bolstered 1/1 reinsurance renewal capacity: Aon
   An easing of conditions in the retrocession market has helped to bolster capacity in advance of the January 1st 2025 reinsurance renewals, resulting in a situation where capital was more than adequate to meet growing client demand, broker Aon has said.
8. Competitive ILW pricing drives considerable buyer interest at renewal: Howden Re
   Competitive pricing for industry-loss warranty (ILW) protection has driven “considerable interest from a growing demographic of buyers” at the January 1st 2025 reinsurance renewals, according to broker Howden Re.
9. Silk Road Re cat bond achieves “effective diversification” for Taiping Re: CEO
   Silk Road Re Limited, the debut catastrophe bond sponsored recently by Taiping Re and issued out of Hong Kong, has helped the reinsurance company achieve “effective diversification” within its catastrophe risk management, as it looks to pursue a dual-pillar protection approach of retrocession and insurance-linked securities (ILS), its CEO said.
10. Arch Re hires Mt. Logan’s Chase as Deputy General Counsel, Capital Partners & Reinsurance
    Arch Re, the reinsurance underwriting arm of global re/insurer Arch Capital Group, has hired Nicole Chase who was most recently at Everest’s third-party capital and ILS platform Mt. Logan, as Deputy General Counsel for Arch Re Capital Partners & Reinsurance.

This is not every article published on Artemis during the last week, just the most popular among our readers over the last seven days. There were 20 new articles published in the last week.

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