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Acrisure Re, the reinsurance broking division of global firm Acrisure, has made some key hires in Bermuda, taking Roman Romeo, who joins the company as Head of Acrisure Re Bermuda, as well as Barry Gordon, a specialist in broking industry-loss warranty (ILW) instruments, from rival Aon.

Roman Romeo has been appointed as President, Head of Acrisure Re Bermuda, effective April 7th.

Based in Bermuda, Romeo will report directly to Michael Cross, President, Acrisure Re North America.

His hire represents a win for Acrisure Re, as the reinsurance broker has taken Romeo from a senior Bermuda leadership role at Aon.

Romeo became the chief executive officer (CEO) of Aon’s Bermuda Reinsurance Solutions unit just one year ago.

Prior to that, he was the Executive Managing Director, Wholesale Treaty for Aon Reinsurance Solutions in Bermuda.

At Acrisure Re, Romeo will have a mandate to scale the reinsurance broking business in Bermuda for the firm, while enhancing client service and building out the team on the island.

The company expects Romeo’s appointment will accelerate its ambitions to build-out a leading Bermuda reinsurance broking operation.

In addition, Acrisure Re has also hired Barry Gordon from Aon, who joins the company as Senior Vice President, ILW, effective April 15th.

Gordon is also based in Bermuda and will report to Romeo and lead Acrisure Re’s ILS trading capabilities, as part of an index-based product suite.

Gordon was most recently Vice President, ILW at Aon in Bermuda and he brings significant expertise in industry-loss warranties (ILWs), alongside broader experience in broking retrocession and reinsurance opportunities.

Simon Hedley, CEO, Acrisure Re Group, said, “The hiring of Roman represents a major milestone in Acrisure Re’s commitment to expanding its footprint and deepening its influence in the Bermuda market. His industry expertise, leadership acumen, and deep-rooted relationships on the Island will open countless doors and drive enormous value for our clients and partners.

“With Barry also joining the team, we are building a world-class platform that will firmly cement Acrisure Re’s standing in the market.”

Paul Scope, CEO, Acrisure Bermuda, added, “Bermuda remains an important market, and Acrisure’s decision to further invest here is both strategic and important.

“Roman’s appointment, alongside Barry’s, is a powerful signal of our intent to grow thoughtfully and meaningfully. I look forward to working alongside them and seeing the impact they will make in the months and years ahead.”

Romeo further stated, “Bermuda continues to play a critical role in the global reinsurance landscape, and I’m pleased to be joining Acrisure Re at a time of strategic focus on the Island. The existing team has strong expertise, and I look forward to collaborating with them—and with Barry—to strategically grow the portfolio and provide clients with tailored, analytics-driven solutions.”

Acrisure Re hires Romeo & ILW specialist Gordon from Aon in Bermuda was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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Artemis has learned from sources that the vast majority of principal from insurtech Kin’s $175 million Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) catastrophe bond is expected to be returned to investors at the upcoming risk period end, while just $5 million will be retained with an extended maturity date to cover any potential loss development.

The Hestia Re 2022-1 catastrophe bond had been exposed to possible losses due to the impacts of hurricane Ian, the largely Florida storm from later in that year of issuance.

Initially after hurricane Ian’s landfall, given the Florida wind focus of this insurance-linked securities (ILS) transaction and the reinsurance protection it provided to sponsor Kin, the $175 million of Hestia Re 2022-1 cat bond notes had been marked down to bids of less than 10 cents on the dollar on some secondary cat bond sheets.

There was, however, a relatively wide-dispersion in the views taken by secondary cat bond trading desks.

In an update we reported that, after hurricane Ian, some pricing sheets had the Hestia Re 2022-1 notes marked for bids as low as 5 cents on the dollar, others still had them marked only 20% down, while one still held them at a mark of 92.

As we also explained at the time, in October 2022, Kin’s reinsurance from the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund inured to the benefit of these Hestia Re 2022-2 cat bond notes, which effectively lifted their attachment point, on a gross loss basis.

As a result, it was challenging for secondary market broker desks and for us to really understand just how exposed the notes were at that time, which likely drove the wide-dispersion in marks in cat bond pricing sheets at that time.

In early 2023, Kin revealed that it ceded around 97% of its gross losses from hurricanes Ian and Nicole in 2022 to its reinsurance capital partners.

At that time, the Hestia Re 2022-1 cat bond notes were marked down still on pricing sheets, for bids of between 70 and 80.

The pricing of the notes continued to recover over-time, resulting in them being marked down for bids in the low to mid-90’s as recently as the first-quarter of 2025.

However, with the scheduled maturity for these notes due later this month, we’ve now learned that out of the original $175 million of principal from the Hestia Re 2022-1 cat bond notes, the majority is now set to be returned to investors holding them.

We’re making the assumption that hurricane Ian has been the only catastrophe event in the risk period for these notes that was seen as a threat for possible attachment of the cat bonds’ coverage. As Kin’s losses from the 2024 storms Milton and Helene were seen to have far lower impacts on the company.

We’re told by sources that $170 million, so some 97% of the outstanding principal, is now expected to be returned to investors, with just the remaining $5 million now set to face an extension of maturity.

Given the notes are marked below 95 across the majority of pricing sheets we’ve seen, it suggests a return of capital greater than the price suggests, which investors will welcome.

For Kin, this likely means the insurer now has much greater clarity of its potential ultimate loss from hurricane Ian (again, presuming that is the event of relevance), giving it the confidence to return the capital and only extend maturity for a 3% sliver of the outstanding notes.

That extension of $5 million will allow Kin some room to make a recovery still, should its losses creep any higher and attach the Hestia Re 2022-1 catastrophe bond notes.

We understand the remaining $5 million of notes will have their maturity date extended for four years, up to April 2029 and the $170 million is expected to be returned to investors after the final risk period ends later this month.

It seems reasonable to assume Kin will have clarity to make a recovery, or return some more of the principal, in advance of that long extension date.

You can read all about the Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) catastrophe bond from Kin and every other cat bond deal issued in our extensive Artemis Deal Directory.

Details of catastrophe bonds facing losses, deemed at risk, or already paid out, can be found in our cat bond losses Deal Directory here.

Kin’s Hestia Re 2022-1 cat bond to repay $170m majority of principal back to investors was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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The lawsuit filed by Porch Group against broker Gallagher Re regarding the Vesttoo reinsurance letter of credit (LOC) collateral fraud has been dismissed with prejudice by the Texas court. But Porch has said it intends to continue to pursue recourse in the matter.

Porch Group is the owner of insurer Homeowners of America Insurance Company (HOA), a company that particularly affected when the Vesttoo reinsurance letter of credit (LOC) collateral fraud caused financial impacts to the firm.

Porch had filed a lawsuit against broking group Arthur J. Gallagher, claiming its reinsurance arm Gallagher Re had “grossly mismanaged” the administration of a reinsurance arrangement subject to collateral posted by Vesttoo that turned out to be fraudulent.

As we later reported, Gallagher responded to the lawsuit and the complaint made by Porch, urging the Texas court to dismiss the petition “in its entirety and with prejudice.”

Porch had then responded, rejecting broker Gallagher’s motion to dismiss the legal case, saying it believed the company had failed to satisfy the obligations of their contract.

In a judgement filed this week, it was “ordered, adjudged, and decreed that this action and all claims by Plaintiff Porch.com, Inc. against Defendant Gallagher Re Inc. are dismissed with prejudice.”

The judgement also decrees, “That Plaintiff take nothing against Defendant; that all relief not granted is denied unless applicable law allows a party to seek some type of postjudgment relief; and that all allowable and reasonable costs are taxed against Plaintiff.”

Referring to arguments made by Gallagher Re in its motion to dismiss the case, the order concludes that the sole breach of contract claim made by Porch against the broker is dismissed with prejudice, while a contact claim against the broker’s parent AJG is denied as moot, as AJG had been voluntarily dismissed from the action.

So closes another chapter in the Vesttoo saga.

In response to an Artemis enquiry to the companies, a Porch spokesperson said, “We will continue to vigorously pursue recourse in this matter, including via all available legal and other processes,” while Gallagher Re declined to comment.

Whether Porch continues to pursue Gallagher Re specifically remains to be seen. But the company is persisting in its efforts to recover more of the value it lost and damages it suffered due to the Vesttoo letter of credit collateral fraud from other avenues.

As a reminder, Porch recently secured a $7.1 million settlement over constructive trust claims with the Vesttoo Creditors Liquidating Trust in relation to so-called constructive trust claims linked to a reinsurance transaction.

The insurer continues to pursue a court case against China Construction Bank, claiming its staff were complicit in the reinsurance collateral fraud, as well.

Read all of our coverage of news related to the fraudulent or forged letter-of-credit (LOC) collateral linked to Vesttoo reinsurance deals.

Porch complaint against Gallagher Re over Vesttoo fraud dismissed with prejudice was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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The Ambassador US mutual catastrophe bond fund strategy operated by advisor Embassy Asset Management has now expanded its insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund’s assets under management to $428 million, with expansion across the portfolio and more industry-loss warranty (ILW) investments made as well.

The Ambassador cat bond fund was launched in the third-quarter of 2021 by investment advisor Embassy, which has a focus on non-correlated strategies that deliver income to its clients.

With a dedicated catastrophe bond and insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment focus, Embassy was the newest entrant to the US mutual ILS fund marketplace at the time.

The strategy began allocating capital to catastrophe bonds in the quarter to April 30th of 2023, while also entering into its first private ILW arrangement under the Consulate Re structure.

After that, the Ambassador Fund benefited from growing investor interest and took more inflows into its catastrophe bond focused strategy through 2023 and 2024.

We last reported on this largely cat bond focused fund when it surpassed $329 million in assets under management (AUM) in October 2024.

Now, as of its last formal reporting of data for January 31st 2025, the Ambassador Fund’s total assets under management had reached almost $418 million.

Which is a more than doubling in size in one year, as the Ambassador cat bond fund had only $164 million in total net assets at January 31st 2024., representing impressive 155% growth in just twelve months.

We understand though, that the fund has continued to grow in recent weeks as well, reaching $428 million in net assets as of the end of February 2025.

The one-year rolling return appears to be running at around 11.67% as of the end of February, however like many cat bond funds the year-to-date appears more muted due to some price effects likely caused by the California wildfire impacts to certain positions, which has reduced the 12-month return.

In the last full-year of performance, to October 31st 2024, the Ambassador cat bond fund achieved a 13.5% return.

As of January 31st 2025, the Ambassador Fund counted $330.3 million of catastrophe bonds within its portfolio, while the preferred note investments into industry-loss warranty (ILW) contracts under Consulate Re amounted to just over $59 million, with the rest of the net assets comprised of short-term investments.

The Consulate Re private investments into ILW’s are a way for the Ambassador portfolio management team to source additional investments, then transform them to a structure suited to a mutual ILS fund strategy.

As we understand it, they are all transformed and securitized industry-loss warranties (ILW) arrangements and now, as of the January 31st reporting, the Ambassador Fund portfolio has 10 Consulate Re positions, 7 of which are 2025 series and so more recently invested in, it appears.

Ambassador mutual cat bond fund grows to $428m, more ILW investments made was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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Artemis has learned that Alex Mican, the Head of PCS Global Strategy and Growth at Verisk Claims, is departing the company.

We understand Mican is departing for a new role in the industry which we are told he begins soon.

PCS is an important provider of data to the catastrophe bond, insurance-linked securities (ILS) and industry-loss warranty (ILW) markets.

This data is used in triggers for industry-loss index based reinsurance and retrocession risk transfer arrangements, with the company acting as a reporting and calculation agent for transactions.

Mican had worked at Verisk since 2014, initially employed as a sales development analyst, then moving to the Property Claim Services (PCS) unit in 2016.

Since then, Mican had led the development of a number of new products at PCS, including the global specialty lines data services – most recently PCS Global Aviation.

In 2023, Mican was promoted into the role of Head of Global Strategy and Growth for PCS.

This position saw him leading all client-facing activity, as well as new product and market development.

Mican has also been the primary touchpoint for reinsurance and insurance linked securities (ILS) activities that PCS undertook since taking on the latest role at Verisk.

We understand the PCS service will not be affected, with Ted Gregory, Head of Global PCS Operations the most senior employee in the unit.

Head of PCS Global Strategy and Growth Alex Mican to depart Verisk was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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K2 Advisors, the hedge fund focused investment management unit of Franklin Templeton, continues to overweight most insurance-linked securities (ILS), but in its outlook for 2025 notes that meaningful catastrophe bond issuance is required to absorb cash in the marketplace.

The investment manager commented, “Following the continued spread tightening that was a dominant theme in the second half of 2024, catastrophe bonds printed another year of record issuance.

“This momentum looks to carry into 2025, with several transactions looking to settle in the first weeks of the year and more anticipated by mid-January. Overall, the market appears relatively healthy as the dense pipeline of issuance continues to absorb cash.”

But K2 Advisors highlights the softening of pricing seen in catastrophe bond issuance, saying, “spreads have remained relatively suppressed compared to the year prior as various bonds have priced below initial guidance.”

But adds that, “However, this has come on the back of the upsizing of programs—significantly in some cases—as sponsors were able to secure more capacity, alleviating some of the excess cash in the market following a successful year of fundraising across the industry.”

Looking to the outlook for the first-quarter of 2025, K2 Advisors notes the cat bond pipeline appears strong and the market has got off to a strong start in the new year.

“Current broker discussions are optimistic as the primary market is well positioned to bring meaningful size in the first few weeks of the new year, with various programs slated to be announced following market participants’ return from the holiday(s).

“Activity in the primary, in addition to end of year rebalancing, should have a knock-on effect for the secondary market, with volume potentially returning after several months of relatively low activity during the second half of 2024,” the investment manager explained.

But, adding a note of caution, K2 Advisors believes the pipeline needs to continue building to supply the new cat bond investment opportunities that fund managers require to absorb excess cash in the marketplace.

K2 Advisors said, “Overall, the market seemingly has too much cash heading into the new year, a situation that could potentially be remedied with meaningful issuance sizes as the market continues to be poised for growth.”

Across insurance-linked securities (ILS), K2 Advisors remains overweight the asset class in conviction terms, and remains strongly overweight catastrophe bonds, private ILS (so collateralized reinsurance) and retrocession.

But the ILS market segments have changed in order slightly in the K2 Advisors hedge fund strategy conviction ranking, with now retrocession at the top, followed by cat bonds and private ILS transactions.

K2 Advisors has stayed neutral in its conviction for industry loss warranty (ILW) investments and remains strongly underweight life insurance-linked security investments.

K2 Advisors says cat bond issuance must absorb cash, raises conviction on retro was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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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.

Industry-loss warranty (ILW) market activity has continued to be strong, as had been seen through the hard cycle, the reinsurance broker explained in its new renewals report.

Buyers have been seeking out well-priced retrocessional protection, in addition to which we have also seen some strategic industry-loss trigger structured protection purchases from a number of primary carriers, seeing the ILW product as well-priced in derivative and securitized catastrophe bond forms.

ILW trade size, count and limit transacted have all been increasing, Howden Re explained, as increasing numbers of buyers (reinsurers and insurers) opt to integrate this industry-loss index triggered product into their wider purchasing strategies.

Howden Re estimates that the market for industry-loss warranties (ILW’s) grew by around 10% to US $7.7 billion in terms of limits transacted from 2023 into 2024.

“The highly responsive nature of the market has seen it successfully navigate a period of market-moving losses (including Hurricane Ian), historically high pricing, fluid supply and demand dynamics and, most recently, a forecasted hyperactive 2024 hurricane season that ultimately resulted in limited ILW losses,” Howden Re explained.

Despite some uncertainty over the direction of travel in loss estimates related to 2024’s major hurricanes Helene and Milton, buyer behaviour was relatively unchanged, given most ILW’s trigger at higher levels of industry loss, Howden Re continued.

Some of the broker’s clients are reviewing their purchasing strategies, being motivated by earnings protection.

All of this explains significant movements in the industry-loss warranty (ILW) market since 2022, as following a period of constrained capacity, low losses and a more positive capital supply environment sets the scene for reduced pricing, Howden Re believes.

The broker noted that US peak peril ILW’s incepting at January 1st 2025 have been trading at lower rates-on-line as a result, reflecting the price environment across reinsurance, retrocession and, of course, the catastrophe bond market.

“Such flexibility, combined with more competitive pricing relative to competing products – US peak peril ILWs incepting at 1 January 2025 showed 20-30% nominal rate reductions from the mid-year 2024 trading period and 5-10% nominal rate reductions from January 2024 – has sparked considerable interest from a growing demographic of buyers,” Howden Re stated.

These ILW price movements closely resemble what we have been hearing from our market contacts.

We’ve updated our industry-loss warranty (ILW) pricing data set using insights gathered over the last few weeks from a range of our market sources.

In the ILW pricing chart below (analyse an interactive version of here), the dotted-lines indicate projections for the forward-looking ILW rate environment.

Howden Re went on to explain that the ILW market is offering competitive pricing for a full-range of products, including aggregate covers, subsequent events, state- and county-weighted ILW’s, and multi-year contracts, all across a broad range of perils and geographies.

The reinsurance broker said, “2024 already stood out for increased trades in international ILW markets, predominantly for the perils of EU wind and flood (at a trigger level of ~US$10 billion). The market is also open to exploring the even more challenging issue of earnings protection from US severe convective storms, with client demand and executed transactions steadily increasing. Parametric solutions are also being explored, with limits likely to scale up rapidly with successful proofs of concept.”

Emphasising “flexibility” in the ILW market, Howden Re said that, “In addition to traditional retrocession purchasers (who are increasingly attracted by healthy supply, a broadening product suite and competitive pricing), interest from insurers is also growing as they become more confident in the management of basis risk.”

As a result, ILW market “Momentum persisted into 1 January 2025 renewals as strong demand and abundant supply drove high trading levels, portending well for further growth this year,” Howden Re concluded.

We hope you find our ILW pricing data useful, as another indicator of reinsurance and retrocession market appetite and rates-on-line.

Competitive ILW pricing drives considerable buyer interest at renewal: Howden Re was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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Last year, catastrophe data aggregator and industry loss estimate provider PERILS revealed an extension to its services, with a new methodology that combines its standard data methodology with that of CRESTA CLIX, which the firm’s CEO Christoph Oehy has said will simplify the process for risk transfer use-cases including catastrophe bonds and ILW’s.

Back in November, when announcing its first loss estimate for the Storm Boris related severe flooding experienced across parts of Central Europe in September 2024, PERILS also revealed this change to its methodology offerings.

That loss event estimate was the first where it combined its own methodology with that of CRESTA CLIX, another loss data service owned by PERILS.

The standard PERILS approach, now renamed PERILS CORE, involves collecting catastrophe event loss data from affected insurers which is then grossed up to 100% market level to be reported on.

The CRESTA CLIX methodology is different, being based on the expert evaluation of a wide range of insurance industry sources, but as a result it covers a much wider range of territories than PERILS CORE.

With the combination of the two under a new catastrophe loss reporting methodology named PERILS EXTENDED, the company can from offer loss estimates all over the world from January 1st 2025, except for the United States.

Having provided its last quarterly update yesterday, the CRESTA CLIX service has now become part of the PERILS product offering as PERILS EXTENDED, from January 1st 2025, complementing the existing and now called PERILS CORE service.

Christoph Oehy, CEO of PERILS, commented on the change, “In the past years, industry losses reported by CRESTA CLIX have been used as triggers in ILW transactions and in one Cat Bond, in addition to industry losses reported by PERILS.

“Moving forward, by having a single reporting agency this will greatly simplify this process for the risk transfer markets, which was a key consideration when we decided to combine the two reporting services under the PERILS umbrella.”

Matthias Saenger, Manager at CRESTA CLIX, added, “We are proud of what we have achieved with CRESTA CLIX since the service was launched in 2020. The database now contains industry loss information for more than 200 catastrophe events. The data has been regularly reviewed and updated, and is accessible in a clean and structured format, allowing underwriters and Cat researchers to focus on analytics rather than data cleansing.

“The CLIX team is looking forward to the launch of the PERILS EXTENDED service and we are convinced that the merger with PERILS CORE will benefit our users as it will provide single-source access to a comprehensive industry loss database.”

For PERILS, the combination with CRESTA CLIX means the company can provide a much broader range of catastrophe insurance market loss estimates, will have a larger and wider-reaching catastrophe loss database, and has greatly enhanced its territorial coverage for industry loss estimate provision.

As we had said before, we suspect the move will have been in part driven by market feedback, suggesting the industry wants access to more loss estimates with a methodology behind them, but is also perhaps more open to different types of loss estimate methodologies than might have been assumed.

We had also noted that, while this enhances the utility of the service and bring new loss estimates to risk transfer market participants, the new methodology may not always meet users needs given the introduction of expert evaluation into the mix, rather than a reported loss data approach.

As we’ve always said in our reporting, more data is naturally beneficial to those looking to structure and trade industry-loss triggered instruments, such as catastrophe bonds and industry-loss warrants (ILWs) and can open up new risk transfer opportunities where before they had not been feasible.

It will be interesting to see whether the new combined methodology from PERILS and CRESTA can drive greater use of these industry-loss index based risk transfer instruments over time.

PERILS with CRESTA CLIX to simplify reporting for cat bond & ILW risk transfer: CEO was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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