Why Attend

This year in particular there is plenty to discuss regarding cat bonds, life settlements and other insurance-linked securities! We will again feature two fully dedicated tracks for both the life and non-life sides of the market.

On the non-life side, there appears to be a broad consensus that the ILS market is beyond recovery mode and poised for growth. Cat bond issuance was strong in 2009 – approximately $3.4billion was issued amid challenging market conditions – and many market participants are predicting 2010 issuance in excess of $5billion. If the market is to sustain its growth, however, it is clear that the industry will need to do a better job of educating investors on the unique value proposition of the asset class, and there remains much work to be done in the areas of enhancing transparency, resolving model uncertainty, and expanding ILS into emerging markets. It also isn’t clear what the impact will be on the market of the worst ever first quarter for natural catastrophe losses.

On the life side, market participants are getting much more serious about taking back the publicity battle that has been raging since the publication of that now infamous New York Times article some six months ago. The Insurance Studies Institute has been leading many of these efforts, and will be leading an exclusive pre-conference workshop at the event on “Winning the War of Words.” Furthermore, as the dynamic shifts from the secondary market to the tertiary one – transactions involving dozens or hundreds of pre-settled policies – a number of due diligence issues are emerging that are causing headaches for investors. What are the consequences from a valuation perspective if policies were settled several years ago, when more aggressive LE assumptions were the norm?