Apart from legislative activity in the area of cat funds and cat risk reinsurance, there have been three recent items of interest with respect to alternative reinsurance arrangements:
- Hanover Re, which has been very active in securitizing reinsurance risks, has securitized reinsurance recoverables valued at approximately $1 billion, to accelerate the cash flow in that area;
- The World Bank has created a regional catastrophe risk insurance pool that is currently covering 18 Caribbean countries. Two press releases describe the pool and the initial funding for the pool, which will purchase reinsurance in the private market. A detailed report available at the World Bank's Internet site provides additional detail;
- Guy Carpenter & Company and MMC Securities Corp. has issued a detailed report titled The Catastrophe Bond Market at Year-End 2006, providing an annual review of the catastrophe bond market and an update on bond transaction activity and market dynamics. It provides interesting descriptions of different kinds of alternative risk transfer mechanisms, such as catastrohe bonds, side cars, and extreme mortality transactions, with listings of transactions in each category.