Articles from March 2025

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Direct-to-consumer insurtech company, Kin Insurance has hailed the substantial improvement in pricing for its latest catastrophe bond issuance, the $300 million Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) transaction, the company’s largest cat bond yet.

Kin sponsored its debut $175 million Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2022-1) catastrophe bond cover back in April 2022.

Kin returned to the catastrophe bond market in February, initially targeting $200 million or more in Florida named storm reinsurance protection, from this Hestia Re 2025-1 deal, the company’s third cat bond.

In our first update on the deal, we revealed that that target size for the issuance had increased by 50% to $300 million, as well as by more than 70% from the expiring Hestia Re 2022-1 cat bond, due to strong investor demand being seen across the cat bond market.

Then, in late February, we reported that Kin had managed to secure its upsized target of $300 million for this Hestia Re 2025-1 deal, while the final pricing of the two tranches of Series 2025-1 notes were at the low-end of the already reduced guidance range.

The transaction features two tranches of Series 2025-1 notes, a $200 million Class A tranche and a $100 million Class B tranche, which will provide Kin with a three hurricane season source of fully-collateralized Florida named storm reinsurance, on a indemnity trigger and per-occurrence basis, running from June 1st this year to three years after the issuance completes.

Angel Conlin, Chief Insurance Officer at Kin, commented: “The success of this transaction, particularly the substantial improvement in pricing terms, validates our disciplined approach to risk selection and portfolio management. This enhanced protection at more favorable terms directly benefits our policyholders by strengthening our claims-paying ability while reducing our overall cost structure.”

According to Kin, the company’s new catastrophe bond represents a pivotal component of a comprehensive 2025 reinsurance program, for Kin-managed reciprocal exchanges, which protects a rapidly growing policyholder base across multiple states.

Sean Harper, CEO of Kin, said: “Insurers and their customers have experienced higher reinsurance rates a few years in a row. We are happy to see reinsurance rates begin to decrease for our reciprocal exchanges, which will benefit our policyholders.

“In addition to improvement in the market, the dramatically improved terms reflect investors’ growing confidence in our technology-driven approach to homeowners insurance and our ability to effectively manage catastrophe exposure. This transaction strengthens the capital position of our reciprocal exchanges and supports our continued expansion while maintaining our commitment to providing affordable coverage in catastrophe-prone regions.”

Insurance and reinsurance broker Howden’s capital markets and insurance-linked securities (ILS) specialist unit, Howden Capital Markets & Advisory served as the exclusive structuring agent and bookrunner for the transaction.

Mitchell Rosenberg, Co-Head of Global ILS at Howden Capital Markets & Advisory, added: “The substantial upsizing and favorable pricing of this transaction highlight the ILS market’s strong appetite for supporting innovative and top performing insurers like the Kin reciprocals, that continue to demonstrate model outperformance, transparent communication, and a proven track record in underwriting and claims.

“We’re proud to have helped Kin Interinsurance Network achieve these exceptional terms, which represent a significant improvement over previous issuances.”

As a reminder, you can read all about the Hestia Re Ltd. (Series 2025-1) catastrophe bond from Kin and every other cat bond deal issued in our extensive Artemis Deal Directory.

Kin highlights “substantially lower pricing” of new Hestia Re 2025-1 cat bond was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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Reask, the catastrophe modelling, climate analytics and data specialist, has announced that it has appointed Moody’s Joss Matthewman as its new Chief Revenue Officer, to help support the company’s next phase of growth.

Matthewman brings extensive experience in insurance, reinsurance and catastrophe modelling, as well as a deep understanding of how models are built, applied, and scaled across global re/insurance, parametric insurance, and insurance-linked securities (ILS) markets.

He joins the organisation from ratings agency Moody’s (previously RMS) where he spent four years as Senior Director of Climate Change Product Management & Strategy, responsible for driving go-to-market and product strategy across all climate change products.

Prior to joining Moody’s, Matthewman worked at specialist insurer and reinsurer Hiscox, where he held the role of Group Head of Catastrophe Exposure Management, overseeing the the groups catastrophe risk exposure across all exposed lines of business.

In addition, Matthewman started his career by working as a catastrophe model developer at RMS, where he held various roles leading model development across hurricane wind and storm surge risk.

Reask said that Matthewman’s unique experience in re/insurance and catastrophe modelling go-to-market strategy, coupled with the firm’s product market-fit made him the clear choice to spearhead the company’s next phase of customer-centric growth.

Addressing his appointment, Matthewman said: “With their demonstrated expertise in catastrophe risk and cutting-edge innovation, I am delighted to be joining Reask. I very much look forward to having this opportunity to help drive continued growth of the company.”

Jamie Rodney, CEO of Reask, commented: “Joss is a rare and exceptional talent having worked across the entire value-chain of building, buying and selling models. Coupled with his deep curiosity and ability to provide extreme weather data solutions that do not exist today, there is no one better positioned to understand the challenges our customers face. Joss’ expertise will be key in delivering value and maximising our product-market fit as we enter our next phase of growth.”

Reask hires Joss Matthewman from Moody’s as Chief Revenue Officer was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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Yokahu, an insurtech and Lloyd’s Coverholder, has announced the launch of a parametric risk exchange platform for the London insurance and reinsurance market, aiming to seamlessly connect brokers, carriers, and data providers to streamline parametric risk transfer transactions.

Yokahu believes that its launch of cat-risk.com will reduce friction in the market when it comes to trading in parametric insurance or reinsurance arrangements, while ensuring fast, transparent payouts when catastrophic events strike.

The company says that it has built its new parametric risk exchange with a goal to enhance the market, rather than disrupt it, transforming what can be a slow and high-friction process to allow for rapid quote and bind times, while offering real-time risk assessment, pricing and importantly seamless capacity allocation to parametric opportunities.

The cat-risk.com platform will enable multiple carriers to co-insure parametric risks that are placed on the platform, based upon the individual risk appetites of capital providers.

So it appears that capital will be able to express its risk appetite for deals, to win access to parametric opportunities through Yokahu’s new parametric risk exchange.

As a Lloyd’s Coverholder, Yokahu will administer each carrier’s portfolio separately and discreetly, allocating capacity to the deal presented using “BiPar principles in a manner that reflects the traditions of trading at Lloyd’s but in a digital context,” the company said.

Yokahu explained that, “This allows more risk carriers to enter the parametric climate resilience market with smaller initial lines and reduced portfolio volatility.”

Policy triggering will be automated through the digital parametric risk exchange, with any claims instantly presented for approval to carriers reducing claim payment times to as little as 48 hours.

The platform has been launched with support for extreme weather risks, including hurricanes, typhoons, and storms, with limits up to $5 million per transaction, but the goal is to include earthquake coverage and higher limits, as well as enhanced risk insights from data partners.

Yokahu said the platform launch already sees leading data providers such as Reask involved, while it is being supported by major capacity providers and top-tier brokers as well.

Tim McCosh, Founder & CEO of Yokahu, commented, “Parametric insurance has long been heralded as a solution for fast, reliable disaster payouts, but inefficiencies in placement have hindered adoption. With cat-risk.com, we are delivering on the promise of parametric insurance – removing barriers, improving accessibility, and ensuring resilience in the face of growing climate and disaster risks.”

Farid Tejani, Co-Founder of Yokahu, added, “This is about evolution, not revolution. cat-risk.com enhances the existing parametric insurance ecosystem, making transactions smoother, data integration stronger, and payouts faster. We believe this will help unlock the full potential of parametric insurance for businesses, governments, and communities worldwide.”

Yokahu CFO, Carsten Wolheimer, further stated, “cat-risk.com is an important step forward in combining financial markets expertise with innovative parametric risk transfer. By streamlining transactions and leveraging robust financial market principles, we are creating a more efficient, transparent, and scalable solution for disaster risk transfer, fully aligned with Yokahu’s vision for a digital insurance marketplace that delivers real impact.”

Digitally connecting parametric risk transfer opportunities from cedents more directly and efficiently to risk capital providers is a natural evolution for the market and one that has been gaining increasing attention, with other platforms already available that seek to address this.

Yokahu, with its Lloyd’s Coverholder focus, can channel parametric risk through its platform to Lloyd’s capital providers, which could help to make parametric opportunities more readily accessible, while also enabling cedents to get access to broader panels and more competitive capital, as well as offering faster payouts and digital monitoring of risk transfer arrangements.

Yokahu launches parametric risk exchange for London re/insurance market was published by: www.Artemis.bm
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