Report: Active 4Q Pushes 2011 Cat Bond Issuance Over $4 Billion

It was a traditionally active fourth quarter for cat bond issuance stayed in 2011, according to the Insurance-Linked Securities Market Update from Willis Capital Markets & Advisory.

The quarter saw nine new non-life issues brought to market, totaling $2 billion of risk capital, making it the most active quarter last year, and the strong performance brought the total non-life issuance in 2011 to $4.3 billion, down from $4.8 billion 2010, according to the report.

The quarterly report titled, “Strong Close to Year Pushes 2011 Insurance Volume over $4 Billion,” shows the shortfall in total 2011 issuance when compared with 2010 arose in the first half of last year, driven by the uncertainties caused by loss activity and significant changes to the RMS model for U.S. hurricane risk.

The report shows U.S. hurricane risk continues to dominate the non-life market, with 68 percent of outstanding issuance exposed to hurricane risk in some form.

Willis Capital Markets & Advisory, with offices in New York and London, provides advice to insurance and reinsurance companies on a broad array of mergers and acquisition transactions as well as capital markets products. Willis Capital Markets & Advisory is part of Willis Group Holdings.